Re: TNSNAMES

"Maurits Groenenberg" <groenenberg.m_at_net.hcc.nl> wrote in message news:92dfoi$cqr$1_at_porthos.nl.uu.net...
> IN THE ORACLE HELP FILE I READ THAT NET 8 ONLY WORKS UNDER WIN NT
> From: "Jim" <hamilton_at_bignet.net>
> Subject: Visual Basic connection to Oracle Personal 8i
> Date: dinsdag 12 december 2000 3:46
>
> Hello everyone:
>
> I've just installed Oracle 8i Personal version and want to connect to the
> database using Visual Basic. I've been trying to figure out the
> documentation but my background is such that I don't seem to get it. Can
> someone give me the steps I have to follow to use VB as a front end to the
> data base? I've been trying different things but get errors such as:
>
> Test Connection failed because of an error in initializing provider.
> ora-12154 . TNS:Could not resolve service name.
> Error in initializing provider ora-12560. Etc....
>
> I've been trying to use Net8 but no luck.
>
> Thanks for any help you can give me!
>
>
>
>

The first line in the post is simply untrue. Net8 works on all platforms. You need to setup a listener and you need to setup tnsnames.ora. You can do so using the Net8 Configuration Assistant. You need to configure either the IPC protocol or the TCP protocol (It looks like Microsoft has deleted netbeui from win98, which is the protocol Oracle calls named pipes).
If you use the TCP protocol, your best bet is to use 'localhost' as your host name, and enter the following line in your \windows\hosts file
127.0.0.1 localhost
Make sure you can ping localhost from a dos box, this will verify the tcp/ip protocol is properly functioning.
If you are asked for a SID and you took all defaults, the SID is ORCL, and the ORACLE_HOME directory
c:\oracle\ora81
In the tnsnames configuration you need to make sure you choose Net8 compatible configuration and again specify host, sid and oracle_home. Also everywhere use the default port of 1521. After configuration you need to issue lsnrctl start in a DOS box. If you get that working, you can either use ODBC (non-native protocol) or Oracle Objects for OLE (native protocol) . In the former case you need the ODBC administrator applet to setup a proper ODBC connection. I just went through the procedure myself yesterday, and I didn't yet configure ODBC, which is not much of a priority for me, as I don't have a recent version of VB.
If you require further assistance respond to me privately, preferably in Dutch

Regards,

Sybrand Bakker, Oracle DBA Received on Wed Dec 27 2000 - 14:32:07 CST