Accessing Oracle without Oracle Client Setup using Instant Client (Windows)

Oracle Client Installation is required on machines from which access to Oracle Server is required. My work machine has only 1Gb of RAM and i run few more memory intensive applications on it. Currently i am using Oracle Instant Client instead of Oracle Client to access Oracle Database. Setup is minimal and if done in order works fine.

Read more on Instant Client from Oracle’s Website.

Now coming to setup.

Download Instant Client (10.2.0.4) from the link on website above. You will need to register for download if not already registered which i did not like. After download unzip folder in say C:\ and create a folder named oracle. Inside C:\oracle create a folder bin. Move all unzipped files inside bin folder.

Create a folder name network in C:\oracle. Inside C:\oracle\network create a folder named admin.

Create a new file called tnsnames.ora inside C:\oracle\network\admin.

Now there are 3 environment variables which need to be set:

Path=C:\oracle\bin (Add anywhere in Path)
SQL_PATH=C:\oracle
TNS_ADMIN=C:\oracle\network\admin

Fire up TOAD or Oracle SQL Developer and you should be able to connect to all schemas mentioned in tnsnames.ora

Instant Client is avalible for lot of platforms. I have written this post when using InstantClient on Windows XP.

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~ by Vivek on October 9, 2008.