Okay, here's the deal: I have a C#/.NET app accessing an Oracle 8 database, that works well on our 32-bit machines. It works using a v.8 ODBC client, a 9i client, or a 10g XE client. However, nothing seems to work on a 64-bit windows machine. I did successfully install a 64-bit 11g client, only to find it refuses to talk to a v8 database, so I guess what I need is a 64-bit 10g, 9i or 8i client. I tried 9i and 10g XE with no luck. I have not yet tried the full 10g client.
I installed MDAC 2.8, but in the Admin Tools -> ODBC Data Source manager tool, none of those ODBC drivers show up, presumably because they are not 64 bit. Ony MS SQL shows up.
The weird thing is that there is an old program, Impromptu by Cognos, that works fine - it seems quite able to find and use the 32-bit v8 client that is installed on the system, but my app can't.
I found that I could see and create/edit ODBC data sources by making a copy of the ODBC Data Source tool shortcut, changing it to point to a different path (replace system32 with SYSWOW64), but data sources I create there are somehow hidden from my app. Is there a way to point my .NET app to a specific Data Source, maybe by creating a File DSN and specifying a full local path, for example?
This is driving me nuts. Help!