DevOps, CI/CD and Automation

Yes, me and the other 8,000 developers posting on this site about ODBC not working.

user9334236 wrote:

Does anyone know how to do this in less than 30 steps, after uninstalling and reinstalling all the software and DB several times?

It basically just cost me a job, because lacking an ODBC, working from home, I can't run ADO, OLEDB, even link tables in Access so I can run ADO or DAO into THAT.

Seriously, I've pulled data from a mainframe OS2 into Excel with less trouble. If Oracle can't handle a simple ODBC like IBM, something is very wrong.

They are the most common, universal connection objects in the world. Why does this have to be like pulling teeth?

Realize that Oracle does not require ODBC at all; so please explain why you blame your woes on Oracle DB.

You need to be smarter than the tools you (ab)use.

That must be why Oracle has a 600 megabyte "patch" for ODBCs on Win 64, you need special access to download. Probably because it doesn't actually work either.

I've never had any problem installing Oracle ODBC.  I just download the standard client from OTN, install it according to the very fine Installation Guide, and there it is.  Of course you still have to configure a DNS, but you have to do that with any ODBC.

Then I assume you aren't using Win 7 64 bit.

user9334236 wrote:

Then I assume you aren't using Win 7 64 bit.

You assume incorrectly.

You guys seem to have everything but answers.

> You guys seem to have everything but answers.

You haven't asked a question yet.

The software is here - 64-bit Oracle Data Access Components (ODAC) for Windows - instructions at the bottom of the page.

You haven't indicated what exactly you have installed / uninstalled.

I'll try that. I keep reading you needed the ODBC 32 bit tool in the WOW64 folder. I even downloaded an instant client ap into the main directory with these simple directions. Oracle really goes all out to make their products enjoyable:

• Unzip the ODBC Instant Client package, then execute the odbc_install script.

• By default English(US) DLLs, files will be installed.
• To install the Japanese version ODBC Driver, mention the JA option with install script.
  • C:\Oracle\instantclient_11_2>  odbc_install JA
• The ODBC install script will check for oci.dll, oraociei11.dll, orannzsbb11.dll  at present directory.  If any of these DLLs are missing, installation will fail.
• Oracle Instant Client directory (present directory) name will be part of the driver name in registry.
  • Driver name will be "Oracle in instantclient_11_2".

• After the installation the environment needs to be configured in the following way.
  • Add the directory to the PATH system environment variable.
    • Otherwise ODBC manager will be not able to load/find the driver.

• Define the TNS_ADMIN environment variable to point the .ora files directory for OCI.

• This must be set for OCI to resolve the TNS name.
• If TNS_ADMIN is not set, OCI will examine an operating system dependent set of directories to find tnsnames.ora. This search path includes looking in the directory %ORACLE_HOME%/network/admin/tnsnames.ora. This is the only reason to set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable for Oracle Instant Client. If ORACLE_HOME is set when running Instant Client applications, it must be set to a directory where Instant Client exists (in this case C:\Oracle\instantclient_11_2).  If ORACLE_HOME is not set, then looks in current directory for tnsnames.ora.
• Set any Oracle globalization variables required for your locale. See the Oracle Database 11g Globalization Support Guide for more information.
  • For example on Windows to set NLS_LANG:
    • set NLS_LANG=JAPANESE_JAPAN.JA16EUC 

OK, now this guy rules. I don't know how many pages I've navigated to with people attempting to answer this with the general consensus it doesn't work. You need to install the instant client basic and instant client odbc 64 bit and unzip to the same folder, then run them from dos

Windows 7 - ODBC for Office 2010 64 bit - MS ODBC Driver for Oracle