Re: 8.1.6 on windows 2000, no odbc?

"Allan Tingey" <al_at_genetics.utah.edu> wrote

> I have just installed oracle 8.1.6 on a windows 2000
> server and everything seems to be working ok except
> that remote machines cannot connect using odbc.

Allan, if everything is okay on the server, then there ain't nothing wrong with Oracle if silly ODBC is not working.

> Any ideas on how to get odbc working?

ODBC has jack nothing to do with Oracle.

Now before I get flamed for that statement by some clueless idiot (yeah, in a cranky mood, so what else is new), ODBC is simply an application INTERFACE to a native database driver. In itself, it has NOTHING to do with the database server.

It's sole purpose is to take an application call, translate that into a native db driver call (after screwing it up), and then call the native db driver.

If ODBC is not working it can be because:

a) the application is passing crap to ODBC
b) the ODBC driver is crap and passing crap to the native db driver
c) the native db driver is incorrectly configured (or missing)
d) or because ODBC is just another crap technology from M$

My guess is number c. Although d is also very valid. And yeah, I know c is not a number, but then neither is ODBC a bright idea either. So just back off.

Allan, check if your clients have their TNSNAMES.ORA files updated. They need to know about your database. Called a TNS alias and stored in TNSNAMES.ORA. Contains the name, the IP address, and so on, fo your database server.

Next, test the native db driver (SQL*Net in the case of Oracle) to see it it works and if it can access your database. Oracle supplies the command TNSPING for that.

If that works, then create a ODBC datasource that uses that native driver (Oracle ODBC driver in this case) and configure it with the correct info (using the same TNS alias which you used in TNSPING). Now test the ODBC driver.

And there you should have ODBC working. Not that ODBC ever really works properly, irrespective of what the MS Marketing Warfare Machine and their followers say.

Oh well.. <off to grab yet another cup of coffee in the vain hope that a sudden flash of insight, caused by a caffeine overdose, will result in a revelation on how to rid the world of VB programmers and consultants, SQL-Server DBA's and senior consultants, NT administrators and independant consultants, and other assorted idiots>

--
Billy