Multiple Installations of ODBC Driver

[fingal]

Hi,

We have some application requirements that require us if possible to run two versions of Oracle Client v8.0.3 and v8.1.7 with corresponding ODBC drivers. (sqora32.dll)

Does anyone have any options to have 2 installations of
this dll ? Two installs of the Client is no problem.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
I suspect you will have problems if they have the same file name.
The newer ODBC drivers will work fine with the older version of the database..



p.s. so will the newer version of the client..
( depending on what Oracle tools you need to use)

 

[karluk]

I agree with Turkbear that you most likely don't need two Oracle ODBC drivers. The newer drivers tend to be backwardly compatible with older applications.

However the focus of your question is on how to install two ODBC drivers, not on whether it's necessary. I'm fairly sure that in order to get this configuration to work, you will have to install the drivers to separate Oracle homes. That's actually the normal way to install Oracle 8 and Oracle 8i on the same machine. Oracle 8 is shipped with the old installer, whereas Oracle 8i comes with the Universal Installer. The Universal installer won't allow you to install software to an Oracle home that was created by the old installer. Therefore you are forced to create a new home for the 8i installation. Conveniently enough, that's the configuration you need.

After you do the two installs you will have to configure SQL*Net/Net8 in both homes. Basically that means getting correct tnsnames.ora entries for the databases you need to connect to.

After doing this, you should be able to use the ODBC administrator to create multiple data sources. Each data source can be configured using the Oracle ODBC driver that you select.

 

[fingal]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. I should have been clearer in my
post - the odbora32.dll is installed into c:\winnt\system32
no matter what version of the client you install. ie It's not multiple home compliant. I was just wondering if anyone
had come up with some work around that I might try.

As for the backwards compatible issue - Oracle say that
they are but I can't allow an untested piece of software
be published to our production builds which is used by our production applications.

Thanks again,

Ian

PS Am going to look at version 8.1.7.7 of the ODBC driver.
I think it may be Oracle Home Specific but the new application doesn't support it yet.

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
It is not untested.
If Oracle says it is backward compatible, it is..

There may be no way to use multiple 8.x versions of the ODBC drivers since the file name is the same and it MUST use the system32 location.

To really try an untested method, use Microsoft's ODBC driver for Oracle for the older instance...

 

[karluk]

I'm not sure why fingal's dll is in the system32 directory. On my 8.1.7 client it is in the {oracle home}\bin directory. That was the motivation of my suggestion to install Oracle to separate homes.

I personally would try using the 8.1.7 ODBC driver for both applications, but fingal's hesitation is understandable. Judging from the number of bugs filed against Oracle software, their testers are hardly infallible. Backward compatibility is a claim that can be relied on only until the next bug shows up. Fingal doesn't want to be the one to find it.

On the other hand, if there are bugs it's much better to be on a supported release. The problem with using the Oracle 8 ODBC driver is that Oracle 8 is no longer a supported product. If you have problems, you'll get no help from Oracle. Their suggestion will be "upgrade to the latest release".

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Good catch karluk, as usual..
I failed to actually check on my locations before rushing in to defend Oracle's testing.
I agree that Oracle has hardly been infallible when issuing information, but an ODBC driver is fairly simple and should not cause problems with older versons of a database ( with newer ones, certainly there can be issues)..

We have been using the 8.1.7 ODBC ( when we have to use ODBC at all ) with all of our 8.x instances without incident, so I guess I'm relying on that experience as well as Oracle's info.

All that aside, the separate home solution, as long as the 8.1.x is installed after the 8.0.x one, should solve the problem - Also, I would use an environment variable
to 'point' to one locdation for the tnsnames.ora file to save maintenance woes..use
TNS_ADMIN={ORACLE_HOME}/Network/admin
( this can also be set as a registry value, if you want
under HKLM/Software/Oracle )