Help - trouble using Oracle under Windows

     We're trying to make Oracle communicate with SPSS under Windows. Our ultimate aim is for SPSS to manipulate the info in the Oracle db, and we're hoping to package it in a SQL*Menu user front-end.

     There are a number of hints in the docs that say it should be straightforward. But we're having big trouble even getting Oracle to run standalone under Windows.

     I find nothing on this topic in the FAQ. Surely somebody has tried to do something like this? I will be very grateful for help, hints, or pointers to useful articles/books/how-to files that we haven't seen.

     Here's our setup: Oracle for MS-DOS, RDBMS V6.0.31.22, running under MS-DOS 6.2 with Windows 3.1. Everything runs fine under DOS alone. We are also running SPSS 6.0, which is a Windows application. Its docs claim we should be able to start up both applications while Windows is running.

     The Oracle docs ("Oracle Tools for MS-DOS & OS/2 Installation & User's Guide") has a section on running Oracle under Windows. It seems to want Oracle under Windows to connect to a networked DB using SQL*Net. The SQL*Net init program came as a Windows application, and seems to start up fine, but Oracle still gives messages that it is trying and failing to connect to the net. Our net is Novell NetWare 3.1.1.

     We have seen Oracle's RDBMS V6.0.33.06, which includes 2 additional disks not in our revision called "SQL*Plus for Windows" and "Run Menu/Run Forms for Windows", and additional books talking about the Windows environment. We saw that setup running SQL*Forms and SQL*Plus under MS-DOS and Windows (in standard mode) on hardware similar to ours. But when we called Oracle sales about upgrading to this version, they told us "only Oracle running under OS/2 will handle Windows."

     We're running on an Intel 386 with 8Mb RAM, which we've tried configuring in various combinations of extended/expanded memory. Adding up various "minmum requirements" numbers makes us suspicious we'll have to go up to 16Mb eventually. But it seems like we should be able to run Oracle by itself on our current configuration.

     Has anyone been able to get DOS Oracle to run (do useful things with data) under Windows? If so, how? Was it worth it? Or are there still limitations that cause problems we should know about? Hope somebody can help. Thanks in advance.

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ghollid_at_relay.nswc.navy.mil
Glenn Holliday,  Computer Sciences Corporation,  Dahlgren, VA 703-663-9251