Re: Made stupid mistake, how can I recover?

To avoid having to set the ORACLE_SID each time, right-click on "My Computer" and select properties. Then click the Advanced tab and then "Environment Variables" (at bottom). On the bottom half of the form that opens look through the list of System Variables. If ORACLE_SID is in there, click edit and change it to "Paulie" (if it's not there, click New and add it). This will be a persistent variable, so you won't have to change it every time you reboot. The error that you are getting with SQL*PLUS (GUI) will probably go away once this system variable is set. The way you were doing it only sets the variable for the cmd window that you are in (i.e. it is not a system wide variable), so SQL*PLUS (GUI) didn't know what DB you wanted to connect to (assuming you are using "/ as sysdba." You can either use the system variable or "/@Paulie as sysdba" and it should work (GUI).

Based on what you've given as output from SQL*PLUS, the Oracle instance is already starting automatically. If you look at the services mgmt window, you can verify that the service is set to auto start (it probably is). In Windows, if the Oracle instance service is set to auto start and all is ok w/ the DB (i.e. no corruption, bad parameter settings, etc.), the DB instance will start and open at bootup.

On as side note, I personally always use the cmd window version of SQL*PLUS. This is great for scripting with .bat and .sql files (i.e. integrate Windows and Oracle scripts).

Jesse Received on Thu Apr 21 2005 - 09:31:41 CDT