Multiple versions/which client?

We have multiple NT servers running IIS (3 different “test” machines, one production) hosting browser based apps that access our Oracle databases. In trying to solve problem of resolving TNSNAMES, we came across some more general questions.

First, when multiple versions of the Oracle client software are installed on a machine, which one is actually used by a requesting application? Is this controlled by the Oracle_home setting? If, for instance, I have 7.3, 8.0, and 8.1 software installed, is only one “available” at any given time, depending what was selected with the ‘home selector’?

Second , how does the registry structure enter into this, particularly as regards locating TNS_ADMIN? I have one particular Oracle client (a test web server) that has all 3 versions mentioned above. We found that various versions of SQLPlus (when launched directly from its respective \bin directory) required the TNS_ADMIN value to be at different places in the registry before it would be recognized and used to located TNSNAMES.ORA. Starting at HKLM\software\oracle, we found that 7.3 required it to be in the \ORACLE key, while one of the 8.x versions (I don’t have my notes handy) wanted it in the \ORACLE\ALL_HOMES key, and the other 8.x version wanted it in one of the \ORACLE\HOMEn keys.

• Ed Stevens

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Before you buy. Received on Wed Oct 20 1999 - 11:02:16 CDT