Help with Access connecting to a Oracle DB on a Windows 7-64bit workstation

TheVenkster

Hello:

Here's my configuration:

OS: Windows 7-64bit

Oracle DBMS: 11g

I am trying to connect to a 11g DB from within Access.

I launched the ODBC Administrator from c:\windows\syswow64 directory as an Administrator (which I undertstand is the 32-bit version). When I tried to set up a new DSN, I encountered two problems:

1. The TNS Service Name dropdown has a slew of entries with funny characters. However, it did not include my TNS Entry.

2.  I manually entered my TNSName. It did ask me for the username and password. When I tested the connection, I got an error "ORA-12154"

Any help to resolve the issue will be much appreciated.

Venki

Sdhamoth-Oracle

Hi,

Did you set TNS_ADMIN environment variable? If not, can you try after setting it?

Thanks,

Senthil

TheVenkster

Senthil:

What should it point to?

Anyway, I re-installed both the 64-bit Oracle DB and the 32-bit client. There are two sets of TNSNames.Ora, Listener.Ora and SQLNet.ora, one for the 64-bit and one for the 32-bit in their respective folders.

I have no problem creating an ODBC DSN for the 64-bit version. The link connects fine to the DB

I have two TNS Listeners defined, one for the 64-bit and one for the 32-bit. While the 64-bit uses Port 1521, I am using Port 1522 for the 32-bit; I also made sure that Listener.ora refers to the same port. But when I use Oracle Net Configuration Assistant to configure Local Net Service Name Configuration to test the Service, it says "TNS:listener does not currently know of the service requested in connect descriptor.

I did check that both the TNS Listener services are running.

venki

TheVenkster

Senthil:

I don't know what happened but now, everything works just as expected. I am able to attach Oracle DB tables to an Access database using ODBC. I am able to also connect to the DB using the 64-bit drivers.

Venki