Skip to main content

Oracle Clients on Windows 2012

Recently, I installed the Oracle 12c Runtime client on a handful of Windows 2012 servers. Without thinking much about it, I installed the 32-bit client (required for some developers tools) and the 64-bit client (or server execution). The client software was installed in the following directories:
  • e:\Oracle\product\12.1.0\Client_1
  • e:\Oracle\product\12.1.0\Client_2
So, which is the 32-bit install and which is the 64-bit install? 

This proved to be a more interesting challenge than I thought.  to execute 'sqlplus.exe -V' did return the version, but provided no additional details as to the bitness. First, the directory structures in both are exactly the same.1 With some more intense googling, I found my solution. Windows 2012 labels 32-bit executables in the task manager! As such, I was able to start sqlplus.exe from both client installation folders and look in the task manager.



As you can see from the image above, client_2 is my 32bit install.

For future reference, I put a README file in the e:\Oracle\product\12.1.0 folder stating the rational for having two Oracle homes installed and providing details as to which directory was which so I don't have to perform this exercise each time. 

1 A 2012 article from Burleson (http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_client_32_bit_or_64_bit.htm) states that the %ORACLE_HOME%\lib* directory may provide clues for the bitness of the installation. With the 12c client installation on Windows, that distinction seems to have been removed. 

Comments