Handling Multiple Oracle Homes

This Armstrong-Smith Consulting white paper contains the following:

Details on how to handle multiple Oracle homes when Discoverer wants to install into the default home and you already have something in that home. As far as is known this white paper is accurate and valid as of April 20, 2004. It primarily shows you how to do this using Discoverer 4 can easily e ad!usted for other versions.

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Handling Multiple Oracle Homes

Multiple Homes
*o e+amine your Oracle home settings, we use the ,indows -egistry editor. Use this workflow to open the Windows Registry editor and examine your Oracle homes: #. .rom the ,indows %tart utton, select %tart / -un. *his opens the following -un dialog o+

2.

In the -un dialog o+, type regedit, and click OK. *his opens the main screen of the ,indows -egistry 0ditor

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.rom the main screen of the ,indows -egistry 0ditor, press the plus key alongside the folder called HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. *his opens a series of su 'folders, among which you will see one called %oftware 2avigate to the su 'folder called SOFTWARE, and press the plus key. *his causes ,indows to display a list of all the vendors from whom you have installed software. Among the list of vendors you should see one called Oracle 2avigate to the su 'folder called ORACLE, and press the plus key. *his causes ,indows to display a set of su 'folders, among which are the folders for your Oracle homes

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Handling Multiple Oracle Homes

4. 5ocate the folder called ALL_HOMES and press the plus key. *his causes ,indows to display details a out all of the Oracle homes that you have on your system

%hown a ove is an e+ample O-A&50 folder from one of my systems. As you can see, my system contains four Oracle homes. ,indows has given each home a uni6ue registry ID, and has also created a separate registry folder for each one. 2otice how the homes have een given uni6ue, se6uential ID num ers ID0 to ID1, with the corresponding registry folders eing called HOME0 to HOME3 $. %ingle click the folder called ALL_HOMES. *his causes ,indows to display the following information(

*he information eing displayed is easy to understand. 7ou will see the name of the default home, a count of the num er of homes on the system and the ID of the last home used 8. %ingle click the folder called HOME0. *his causes ,indows to display the following information(

7ou will see the name of the home9 in this case it is the default home, the default language eing used, and the location on the disk into where all of the Oracle software has een installed :. &lose the ,indows -egistry editor

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Handling Multiple Oracle Homes Locating the Disco erer home

In the previous section I showed you how to e+amine your ,indows registry to locate the information eing held a out your Oracle homes. ;ut which one of these homes contains Discoverer< =ood 6uestion ) I will show you. On a system containing multiple Oracle homes, follow this workflow to determine which one contains Discoverer 4 #. 2. ote: .rom the ,indows %tart utton, select %tart / %earch / .or .iles or .olders. *his opens the ,indows %earch -esults dialog o+ In the search o+ type D!S"ADM#$%$ and click Search &ow

!n Discoverer " this file is named D!#"$%D&'()(, in Discoverer 4 it is named D!#4%D&'()(, while in *oth +iD# and $,g it is called D!#-$%D&'()( 1. ,indows will search for the file and, in the %earch -esults window, display the name of the folder containing the file. As you can see elow, on my system the file is located in c(>orant>discvr4

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*herefore, the folder called c(>orant is my Oracle home. 2ow all I have to do is use the workflow in the previous section to determine what name I gave to that Oracle home. If you refer ack to workflow step 8 in section # you will see that the Oracle home associated with the folder called c(>orant is in fact my DEFAULT_HOME

ote:

%s explained previously, Discoverer " and Discoverer 4 want to go into the default Oracle home' .he only exception to this is when you have already installed +ias i#uites release $, in which case Discoverer 4 will have *een installed into the /,0 home

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Handling Multiple Oracle Homes

Changing the Default Home

As e+plained elsewhere, Discoverer 1 and Discoverer 4 needs to e installed into the Default Oracle ?ome. ?owever, as some of you may have already discovered, if you already have an Oracle product installed into the Default ?ome the Discoverer installation will fail. ?owever, do not worry ecause there is a workaround. .o install Discoverer " or 4 onto a machine that already has something installed in the Default 1ome, follow this workflow: #. %tart the Discoverer installation. ,hen you get to the step where you are re6uired to enter a home name and folder location, enter some values that do not yet e+ist. *he installer will create the home ut the Discoverer install will fail ecause it says it is not the default home. @ake a note of the home name ecause you will need it in step 3 %top the install and e+it the installer 2e+t you need to follow steps # to $ of the workflow in section # to look into your registry and locate the registry setting called
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\ALL_HOMES\DEFAULT_HOME

2. 1.

4.

-ight click on the entry called DEFAULT_HOME, and from the pop up menu select @odify. *his opens the following dialog o+(

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In 'alue Data, change the entry to e the name of the new home that you created in step #

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!f you are not sure what the name of the new home is, when you are inside the registry look for the setting called 2%#.31O&( in the %2231O&(# folder' .his is a num*er' .ake this num*er and look for the folder called 1O&(x, where x is the num*er you 4ust o*tained' !n here you will see an entry called OR%52(31O&(3 %&(' 5opy what you find in there and insert that into 6alue Data 4. ?aving correctly typed in the name of the home, click OK "age 3 of $
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Handling Multiple Oracle Homes

$. 8. 0+it the registry and restart the installer ,hen prompted for the name of the home, from the list of e+isting Oracle homes, select the home you created in step #. *he installer will now continue as normal and Discoverer 1 or 4 will install ote: 7y the way, none of the a*ove will have any impact on any of your existing Oracle installations' .hey will continue working as normal

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Handling Multiple Oracle Homes

As far as is known this white paper is accurate and valid as of April 20, 2003. If you spot any errors or omissions please contact us at( infoAlearndiscoverer.com and we will e delighted to make that correction or improvement ;est wishes in advance @ichael Armstrong'%mith April 2003

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