Re: Problems with Microsofts ODBC driver for Oracle

On Thu, 20 Apr 2000 20:24:43 +0200, "Fredrik Lilja" <fredrik.lilja@_NOSPAM_iconmedialab.se> wrote:

>I'm developing a Data Access Layer (with Visual Basic and ADO) for an Oracle
>database.
>I've realized that I want to use the Microsoft ODBC driver for Oracle
>instead
>of Oracles own. When I try to set up a DSN on my workstation using the
>Microsoft ODBC
>driver for Oracle it says that I don't have Oracle's network client
>installed. But that is not true,
>I have an Oracle 8 client installed and I have no problem connecting to the
>Oracle server with
>Oracle's own tools and ODBC driver.
>But I don't want to use Oracle's own ODBC driver because it causes problems,
>I want
>to use Microsofts ODBC driver for Oracle.
>
>I have tried to set up a DSN with Microsofts ODBC driver for Oracle on the
>Oracle 8i server
>and that was no problem, but on my client I get the error message mentioned
>above
>My question is why the Microsoft ODBC driver for Oracle says that I don't
>have the
>Oracle client installed. Where does it look for it ?
>
>I have MDAC 2.5 installed (tested with 2.1 before with the same result), and
>I have
>the Oracle 8.1.5 client tools installed.
>
>/Fredrik Lilja
>Icon Medialab
>http://www.iconmedialab.se

>

Your driver is most likely a driver for Oracle 7.3, and Microsoft has the habit of hardcoding Oracle dll names in their products. If it is 7.3 it is searching for orawin73.dll in %ORACLE_HOME%\bin.

IMO and experience, the combination of a Microsoft Oracle ODBC driver and Oracle results in far more trouble than Oracle products only. If you are developing a data access layer I would either a) try to resolve the problems with the Oracle driver or better still
b) throw ODBC out of the window, and replace it by Oracle Objects for OLE, which is a DAO like native interface to Oracle (doesn't use ODBC, does use sqlnet) and can be used in Visual Basic and Visual C.

If you still want to use the Microsoft driver, you'll need a higher version.

Hth,

Sybrand Bakker, Oracle DBA Received on Thu Apr 20 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT