Oracle9i Application Server

Client CD-ROM Release Notes

Release 2 (9.0.2) for Windows

April 2002

Part No. A97356-01

These Release Notes contain important last minute information not included in the online documentation library.

This document summarizes the differences between Oracle9iAS Database Client and its documented functionality.

1 Certification and System Requirements

This section describes Oracle9iAS Database Client system and accessibility requirements.

1.1 Windows 95 Support

Oracle9i Server and Oracle9i Client software is not supported on Windows 95. However, you can continue to use an Oracle8i Client or Oracle8 Client on Windows 95 to connect to an Oracle9i Database.

2 Documentation

This section describes Oracle9iAS Database Client documentation requirements.

2.1 Corrections to the Oracle9iAS Client CD (9.0.2) Documentation

Oracle9i is not supported on Windows 95. Ignore occurrences of support for Windows 95 in the Oracle9i documentation library.

2.2 Accessing Documentation on the CD-ROM

Some manuals referenced in this document are not on the Oracle9iAS Documentation CD-ROM. You can view them at:

http://tahiti.oracle.com

3 Installation Issues

This section describes Oracle9iAS Database Client installation issues.

When mounting a CD-ROM on a Novell drive to a Windows NT client and running Oracle Universal Installer, the following error may appear:
```
The Java Runtime Environment was not found at location hence the 
Oracle Universal Installer cannot be run.
```
Because the Novell server does not support long filenames, the directory path for JRE_LOCATION is not recognized (some of the directory names have more than eight characters). Therefore, this configuration is not supported. Try mounting the CD-ROM locally or on a Windows NT Server.
On systems with a combination of Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5.0 and an ATI display driver, a memory dump occurs when the Oracle Universal Installer window is moved around the screen. Selecting a smaller display for the screen may reduce the frequency of this occurrence. This problem is a display driver conflict and no Windows NT patch is available at this time.
When installing Oracle9i on dual boot systems, the software uses the same physical space on both operating systems. Therefore, any tasks done on one operating system are also done on the other operating system, including deinstallation.

This situation can be avoided by performing the following steps:
1. Install Oracle9i into the first environment.
2. Before installing in the second environment, provide a different location than the default when Oracle Universal Installer prompts you on where to create the Oracle Universal Installer inventory. The second environment inventory is independent of the first, and products can be installed or deinstalled separately on both systems.
For installations with a response file, the path to the response file must be the full path on the computer. Oracle Universal Installer does not properly handle relative paths.
Due to a JRE bug a command prompt window appears whenever a configuration tool is launched. Leave this window open until the configuration tool finishes. Closing the window kills the process and causes the configuration tool to fail.

4 Product Related Issues

This section describes Oracle9iAS Database Client product related issues.

4.1 Character Sets

This section contains these topics:

4.1.1 AL24UTFFSS Character Set

Oracle9i Database Client 9.0.1.2 does not support the Unicode character set AL24UTFFSS introduced in Oracle7. This character set was based on the Unicode standard 1.1, which is now obsolete.

Oracle9i Database Client 9.0.1.2 supports the Unicode database character sets AL32UTF8 and UTF8. These database character sets include the Unicode enhancements based on the Unicode standard 3.0.

To migrate the existing AL24UTFFSS database, upgrade your database character set to UTF8 before upgrading to Oracle9i. Oracle Corporation recommends that you use the Character Set Scanner for data analysis before attempting to migrate your existing database character set.

4.1.2 Accessing Object Types and Collections through JDBC

The Oracle JDBC class files, classes12.zip and classes111.zip, provide character set support for the thin and Oracle Call Interface (OCI) drivers. The files contain all the necessary classes to provide complete character set support for all Oracle character sets for CHAR and NCHAR datatypes not retrieved or inserted as part of an Oracle object or collection type. See "Oracle Character Datatypes Support" of Oracle9i JDBC Developer's Guide and Reference for a description of CHAR and NCHAR datatypes.

However, in the case of the CHAR and VARCHAR data portion of Oracle objects and collections, the thin and OCI drivers require nls_charset12.zip for JDK 1.2.x and 1.3.x or nls_charset11.zip for JDK 1.1.x for most Oracle character sets (except US7ASCII, WE8DEC, WE8ISO8859P1, and UTF8). These two nls_charset*.zip files are included in the Oracle JDBC driver installation. To obtain this support, you must add the appropriate nls_charset*.zip file to your CLASSPATH or the logical equivalent, depending on the application.

Note:

For most languages (including English and other Western European languages), the default character set on Windows is not US7ASCII, WE8DEC, WE8ISO8859P1, or UTF8. Therefore, nls_charset*.zip file is necessary on Windows for most languages.

See Also:

Oracle9i JDBC Developer's Guide and Reference for more information on this topic

4.2 Oracle C++ Call Interface Methods Specific to Windows NT

The global methods for getting collections of Refs or setting collections of Refs from classes Statement and ResultSet have changed for Windows NT as follows:

Use getVectorOfRefs in place of getVector on Windows NT
Use setVectorOfRefs in place of setVector on Windows NT

The method names have been changed but the number of parameters and the types of the parameters remain the same as the original getVector and setVector methods for Refs on these classes.

Applications on Windows NT platforms should be calling these new methods only for retrieving and inserting collections of Refs.
Applications not running on Windows NT platforms have a choice of calling the currently existing getVector and setVector methods. However, Oracle Corporation recommends the use of the new methods for any vector operations with Refs.

ResultSet Class: Fetching collection of Refs
void getVectorOfRefs(ResultSet *rs, unsigned int index, OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector<Ref<T> > &vect);

This method fetches a column value specified by the column index that is a collection of Refs from a result set.

The parameters are:

rs - ResultSet object
index - the column index of a column which is a collection of Refs
vect - the vector into which the Refs are fetched

Statement Class: Fetching collection of Refs
void getVectorOfRefs(Statement *stmt, unsigned int index, OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector<Ref<T> > &vect);

This method fetches a column value specified by the column index that is a collection of Refs from a statement. This is used in case of OUT binds and data manipulation language (DML) returning clauses. The parameters are:

stmt - statement object
index - the column index of a column that is a collection of Refs
vect - the vector into which the Refs are fetched

Statement Class: Inserting a collection of Refs
template <class T> void setVectorOfRefs(Statement *stmt, unsigned int paramIndex, const OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector<Ref<T> > &vect, const OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::string &sqltype);

This method inserts a collection of Refs into a column specified by the index. The parameters are:

stmt - statement object
paramIndex - the column index of a column that is a collection of Refs
vect - the vector of Refs that are inserted into the column
sqltype - the type name of the collection that was created in the database

The global methods for the fetching or inserting of collections of objects have been changed for Windows NT. The interface remains the same with respect to the method names and the number of parameters and the datatypes, but differs in the template parameter definition for Windows NT. Specifically, the template parameter for the template methods of getVector and setVector of objects (object pointers) on Windows NT have a T instead of a T * as shown in the following APIs.

Note that the usage of the methods does not differ across the platforms (users need not modify the call to these methods at all). On Windows NT, the template arguments passed as object pointers in the method call are specialized for the parameter T instead of T * on other platforms.

class ResultSet: fetching a collection of objects
#ifdef WIN32COMMON template <class T> void getVector( ResultSet *rs, unsigned int index, OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector< T > &vect) ; #else template <class T> void getVector( ResultSet *rs, unsigned int index, OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector< T* > &vect) ; #endif

This method fetches a collection of objects from a ResultSet for the column specified by the index.

The parameters are:

rs - resultSet object
index - column index
vect - the vector into which the objects should be fetched

class Statement: fetching a collection of objects
#ifdef WIN32COMMON template <class T> void getVector( Statement *stmt, unsigned int index, OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector< T > &vect) ; #else template <class T> void getVector( Statement *stmt, unsigned int index, OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector< T* > &vect) ; #endif

This method fetches a collection of objects from a statement for the column specified by the index. This method is used in case of OUT binds and DML returning clauses. The parameters are:

stmt - statement object
index - column index
vect - the vector into which the objects should be fetched

class Statement: inserting a vector of objects
#ifdef WIN32COMMON template <class T> void setVector( Statement *stmt, unsigned int paramIndex, const OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector< T > &vect, const OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::string &sqltype) ; #else template <class T> void setVector( Statement *stmt, unsigned int paramIndex, const OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::vector<T* > &vect, const OCCI_STD_NAMESPACE::string &sqltype) ; #endif

This method inserts a collection of objects into a statement for the column specified by the index. The parameters are:

stmt - statement object
paramIndex - column index
vect - the vector into which the objects should be fetched
sqltype - the type name of the collection created in the database

See Also:
Oracle C++ Call Interface Programmer's Guide for more information on Oracle C++ Call Interface APIs

4.3 Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Oracle Corporation only ships an import library, oci.lib, for use with the Microsoft Compiler. Other compilers, for example, Borland, though likely compatible with the Oracle DLLs, are not tested and supported by Oracle for use with OCI.

4.4 Object Type Translator

(Bug 1950643) Object Type Translator requires that the environment variable NLS_LANG be set to a non null value such as us7ascii. If this environment variable is set to a null value, Object Type Translator does not work.
(Bug 1892470) If you are trying to invoke Object Type Translator from the command prompt and do not receive any output, make sure that the CLASSPATH includes the following.
```
%ORACLE_HOME%\sqlj\lib\runtime.zip;%ORACLE_
HOME%\sqlj\lib\translator.zip;%ORACLE_
HOME%\jdbc\lib\classes111.zip;%ORACLE_HOME%\jdbc\lib\nls_
charset11.zip
```
In addition, a JDK 1.1-compatible Java compiler (assumed to be javac) and the Java interpreter (assumed java) must be correctly installed.

4.5 Oracle9i Network, Directory, and Security Issues

This section contains these topics:

4.5.1 Windows Native Authentication

Currently user database links are not supported with Windows Native Authentication.

4.5.2 Active Directory

On Windows NT and Windows 2000, the Oracle database service runs in the security context of the LocalSystem or a specific local or domain user. When using Active Directory, if the database service runs in the security context of LocalSystem, manually add the computer name in which the database service is running to the access control entries on the OracleDBSecurity container object. Set read permissions on the OracleDBSecurity container object.

For example, if the database service OracleServiceORCL is running in the security context of LocalSystem in the computer MYPC1, then add MYPC1 to the access control entries on the OracleDBSecurity container object with READ permissions on the OracleDBSecurity object.
Oracle Enterprise Manager with patch EM_90100_1835286.ZIP is required when using Enterprise Security Manager for native authentication with Active Directory. This patch also allows Enterprise Login Assistant to store Oracle Wallets in the registry. The patch can be downloaded from OracleMetaLink.
```
http://metalink.oracle.com/
```
Upgrading Oracle Schema and Oracle Context in Active Directory

(Bug 1993113) Oracle Net Configuration Assistant fails while upgrading the Oracle8i release of Oracle Schema and Oracle Context in Active Directory. The Oracle Schema and Oracle Context in Active Directory can be upgraded manually for Active Directory as follows:
1. Copy and paste the following lines into a file. Be sure to include a blank line after each of the three code segments that end with orclProductVersion: 90000 or orclVersion: 90000.
```
dn: cn=BASE,cn=OracleSchemaVersion,cn=configuration,AD_Domain_DN 
changetype: add
objectclass: orclSchemaVersion
cn: BASE
orclProductVersion: 90000

dn: cn=NET,cn=OracleSchemaVersion,cn=configuration,AD_Domain_DN 
changetype: modify
replace: orclProductVersion
orclProductVersion: 90000

dn: cn=RDBMS,cn=OracleSchemaVersion,cn=configuration,AD_Domain_
DN 
changetype: modify
replace: orclProductVersion
orclProductVersion: 90000

dn: cn=OracleContext,AD_Domain_DN 
changetype: modify
replace: orclVersion
orclVersion: 90000
```
2. Replace AD_Domain_DN in four locations with the Distinguished Name (DN) of the Active Directory domain for your Active Directory server. For example:
```
dc=acme,dc=com
```
3. Execute the following command from the command prompt:
```
C:\> ldapmodify -Z -h AD_Host_Name -f filename
```
  where:
  
  AD_Host_Name is the host name of the Windows 2000 Domain Controller where your Active Directory is located and filename is the name of the file you created in steps 1 and 2.
  
  Note:
  The -Z option must be uppercase.
4. Rerun Oracle Net Configuration Assistant.

4.6 SQL*Plus

SQL*Plus does not run and you cannot install the database successfully without the DLLs wininet.dll and shlwapi.dll.

If these DLLs are not present on the computer, you can get them from another computer, the MSDN Web site, or the Windows NT 4.0 installation CD-ROM. Copy the DLLs to C:\WINNT\system32\ before installing Oracle9i.

See Also:

These Microsoft Knowledge Base articles at the Microsoft Support Web site:

Q196917
Q174180
Q184349

http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp

4.7 Enterprise JavaBeans

Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) are not supported with JDK release 1.1. EJB can only be used with JDK release 1.2.2.

Oracle is a registered trademark, and SQL*Plus, Oracle9i, Oracle8i, and Oracle8 is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.