ODBC Instant Client Release Notes

1 ODBC Instant Client

ODBC Instant Client offers all the functionality of the Oracle 10g ODBC driver, except Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server, without the need for a traditional ORACLE_HOME installation.

See Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide for information on OCI Instant Client.

1.1 Installing ODBC Instant Client

Download the Basic Instant Client and ODBC Instant Client packages from the Oracle Technology Network Instant Client page. The two packages must be unzipped into same directory. For example, C:\Oracle\instantclient.

Basic Instant Client is a prerequisite for installing the ODBC Instant Client.

ODBC Instant Client package has the following file/DLLs

File name

Description

sqora32.dll

Driver DLL

sqoras32.dll

Driver setup DLL

sqresus.dll

Resource DLL

sqresja.dll

Japanese resource DLL

ODBCRelnotesUS.htm

Release note

ODBCRelnotesJA.htm

Japanese release note

sqora.chm

Help file

sqoraja.chm

Japanese help file

odbc_install.bat

ODBC Instant Client install script

odbc_mk_instreg.exe

Creates the install registry file. This is called by odbc_install.bat

odbc_uninstall.bat

ODBC Instant Client un-install script.

odbc_mk_uninstreg.exe

Creates the un-install registry file. This is called by odbc_uninstall.bat

Make sure Basic Instant Client is deployed before running the ODBC install script.

Unzip the ODBC Instant Client package, then execute the odbc_install script.

By default English(US) DLLs, files will be installed.
To install the Japanese version ODBC Driver, mention the JA option with install script.

C:\Oracle\instantclient> odbc_install JA

The ODBC install script will check for oci.dll, oraociei10.dll, orannzsbb10.dll at present directory. If any of these DLLs are missing, installation will fail.
Oracle Instant Client directory (present directory) name will be part of the driver name in registry.

Driver name will be "Oracle in <present directory name>".

After the installation the environment needs to be configured in the following way.

Add the directory to the PATH system environment variable.

Otherwise ODBC manager will be not able to load/find the driver.

Define the TNS_ADMIN to point the .ora files directory for OCI.

This needs to be set for OCI to resolve the TNS name.
If TNS_ADMIN is not set, OCI will examine an operating system dependent set of directories to find tnsnames.ora. This search path includes looking in the directory %ORACLE_HOME%/network/admin/tnsnames.ora. This is the only reason to set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable for Oracle Instant Client. If ORACLE_HOME is set when running Instant Client applications, it must be set to a directory where Instant Client exists (in this case C:\Oracle\instantclient).

Set any Oracle globalization variables required for your locale. See the Oracle Database 10g Globalization Support Guide for more information.

For example on Windows to set NLS_LANG:

set NLS_LANG=JAPANESE_JAPAN.JA16EUC

1.2 Uninstalling ODBC Instant Client

Do the following steps to un-install:

Run the odbc_uninstall.bat script.

It will delete the Driver entry in registry.
It will delete the installed Oracle ODBC Driver files.

Reset any environment variables such as PATH and TNS_ADMIN.