<p>I have successfully connected to an Oracle database (10g) from C# (Visual Studio 2008) by downloading and installing the client administration tools and Visual Studio 2008 on my laptop.</p>

<p>The installation footprint for Oracle Client tools was over 200Mb, and quite long winded.</p>

<p>Does anyone know what the minimum workable footprint is? I am hoping that it's a single DLL and a register command, but I have the feeling I need to install an oracle home, and set various environment variables.</p>

<p>I am using Oracle.DataAccess in my code.</p>

[{'answer_id': 70711, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>ODAC xcopy will get you away with about 45MB.\n<a href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/windows/odpnet/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/windows/odpnet/index.html</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 70744, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>DevArt <a href="http://www.devart.com/" rel="noreferrer">http://www.devart.com/</a>, formerly CoreLab (crlab.com) supplies a pure-C# Oracle client. That\'s a single dll, and it works fine.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 70901, 'author': 'Mac', 'author_id': 8696, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/8696', 'pm_score': 7, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>You need an Oracle Client to connect to an Oracle database. The easiest way is to install the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/windows/odpnet/index.html" rel="noreferrer">Oracle Data Access Components</a>.</p>\n\n<p>To minimize the footprint, I suggest the following :</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Use the Microsoft provider for Oracle (System.Data.OracleClient), which ships with the framework.</li>\n<li>Download the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/oci/instantclient/htdocs/winsoft.html" rel="noreferrer">Oracle Instant Client Package</a> - Basic Lite : this is a zip file with (almost) the bare minimum. I recommend version 10.2.0.4, which is much smaller than version 11.1.0.6.0.</li>\n<li>Unzip the following files in a specific folder :\n\n<ul>\n<li>v10 :\n\n<ul>\n<li>oci.dll</li>\n<li>orannzsbb10.dll</li>\n<li>oraociicus10.dll</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>v11 :\n\n<ul>\n<li>oci.dll</li>\n<li>orannzsbb11.dll</li>\n<li>oraociei11.dll</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>On a x86 platform, add the CRT DLL for Visual Studio 2003 (msvcr71.dll) to this folder, as Oracle guys forgot to <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326922" rel="noreferrer">read this</a>...</li>\n<li>Add this folder to the PATH environment variable.</li>\n<li>Use the <a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/network.102/b14212/naming.htm#ABC524382SRI12" rel="noreferrer">Easy Connect Naming</a> method in your application to get rid of the infamous TNSNAMES.ORA configuration file. It looks like this : <code>sales-server:1521/sales.us.acme.com</code>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This amounts to about <strong>19Mb</strong> (v10).</p>\n\n<p>If you do not care about sharing this folder between several applications, an alternative would be to ship the above mentioned DLLs along with your application binaries, and skip the PATH setting step.</p>\n\n<p>If you absolutely need to use the Oracle provider (Oracle.DataAccess), you will need :</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>ODP .NET 11.1.0.6.20 (the first version which allegedly works with Instant Client).</li>\n<li>Instant Client 11.1.0.6.0, obviously.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Note that I haven\'t tested this latest configuration...</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1409089, 'author': 'Fidel', 'author_id': 171846, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/171846', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>This way allows you to connect with ODP.net using 5 redistributable files from oracle:</p>\n\n<p><a href="http://splinter.com.au/using-the-new-odpnet-to-access-oracle-from-c" rel="noreferrer">Chris\'s blog entry: Using the new ODP.Net to access Oracle from C# with simple deployment</a></p>\n\n<p>Edit: In case the blog every goes down, here is a brief summary...</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>oci.dll</li>\n<li>Oracle.DataAccess.dll</li>\n<li>oraociicus11.dll</li>\n<li>OraOps11w.dll</li>\n<li>orannzsbb11.dll</li>\n<li>oraocci11.dll</li>\n<li>ociw32.dll</li>\n</ul>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>make sure you get ALL those DLL\'s from the same ODP.Net / ODAC distribution to avoid version number conflicts, and put them all in the same folder as your EXE</p>\n</blockquote>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1529296, 'author': 'Vincent De Smet', 'author_id': 138469, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/138469', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I found this post on the Oracle forum very usefull as well:</p>\n<h2><a href="http://forums.oracle.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=1418596#1418596" rel="nofollow noreferrer">How to setup Oracle Instant Client with Visual Studio</a></h2>\n<p>Remark: the ADO.NET team is deprecating System.Data.OracleClient so for future projects you should use ODP.NET</p>\n<p>Reproduction:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Setup the following environment variables:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>make sure no other oracle directory is in your PATH</li>\n<li>set your <strong>PATH</strong> to point to your instant client</li>\n<li>set your <strong>TNS_ADMIN</strong> to point to where you tnsnames.ora file is\nlocated</li>\n<li>set your <strong>NLS_LANG</strong></li>\n<li>set your <strong>ORACLE_HOME</strong> to your instant client</li>\n</ol>\n<p>For me, I set NLS_LANG to</p>\n<p><a href="http://download-east.oracle.com/docs/html/A95493_01/gblsupp.htm#634282" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://download-east.oracle.com/docs/html/A95493_01/gblsupp.htm#634282</a></p>\n<p>I verified this was using the correct client software by using the sqlplus add-on to the instant client.</p>\n<p>For me, I set:\nSET NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8MSWIN1252</p>\n<p>Note: before you make any changes, back up your Oracle registry key (if exist) and backup the string for any environment variables.</p>\n<p><a href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/oci/instantclient/ic-faq.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Read the Oracle Instant Client FAQ here</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n'}, {'answer_id': 6608906, 'author': 'kol', 'author_id': 600135, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/600135', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I use the method suggested by Pandicus above, on Windows XP, using ODAC 11.2.0.2.1. The steps are as follows:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Download the "ODAC 11.2 Release 3 (11.2.0.2.1) with Xcopy Deployment" package from oracle.com (53 MB), and extract the ZIP.</li>\n<li>Collect the following DLLs: oci.dll (1 MB), oraociei11.dll (130 MB!), OraOps11w.dll (0.4 MB), Oracle.DataAccess.dll (1 MB). The remaining stuff can be deleted, and nothing have to be installed.</li>\n<li>Add a reference to Oracle.DataAccess.dll, add <code>using Oracle.DataAccess.Client;</code> to your code and now you can use types like <code>OracleConnection</code>, <code>OracleCommand</code> and <code>OracleDataReader</code> to access an Oracle database. See the <a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/win.102/b14307/intro003.htm#BHCJFIAJ" rel="noreferrer">class documentation</a> for details. There is no need to use the tnsnames.ora configuration file, only the <a href="http://www.connectionstrings.com/oracle" rel="noreferrer">connection string </a> must be set properly. </li>\n<li>The above 4 DLLs have to be deployed along with your executable. </li>\n</ol>\n'}, {'answer_id': 23161879, 'author': 'DavidRR', 'author_id': 1497596, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1497596', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Here is an update for <strong>Oracle 11.2.0.4.0</strong>. I had success with the following procedure on <strong>Windows 7</strong> using <code>System.Data.OracleClient</code>.</p>\n\n<p><strong>1.</strong> Download <strong>Instant Client Package - Basic Lite</strong>: <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/winsoft-085727.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Windows 32-Bit</a> or <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/winx64soft-089540.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">64-Bit</a>.</p>\n\n<p><strong>2.</strong> Copy the following files to a location in your system path:</p>\n\n<p><strong>32-Bit</strong>\n</p>\n\n<pre><code> 1,036,288  2013-10-11  oci.dll\n   348,160  2013-10-11  ociw32.dll\n 1,290,240  2013-09-21  orannzsbb11.dll\n   562,688  2013-10-11  oraocci11.dll\n36,286,464  2013-10-11  oraociicus11.dll\n</code></pre>\n\n<p><strong>64-Bit</strong></p>\n\n<pre class="lang-none prettyprint-override"><code>   691,712  2013-10-09  oci.dll\n   482,304  2013-10-09  ociw32.dll\n 1,603,072  2013-09-10  orannzsbb11.dll\n 1,235,456  2013-10-09  oraocci11.dll\n45,935,104  2013-10-09  oraociicus11.dll\n</code></pre>\n\n<p><strong>3.</strong> Construct a connection string that <a href="http://www.connectionstrings.com/oracle/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">omits the need for <strong>tnsnames.ora</strong></a>.</p>\n\n<p><em>(See examples in the test program below.)</em></p>\n\n<p><strong>4.</strong> Run this minimal C# program to test your installation:</p>\n\n<pre class="lang-cs prettyprint-override"><code>using System;\nusing System.Data;\nusing System.Data.OracleClient;\n\nclass TestOracleInstantClient\n{\n    static public void Main(string[] args)\n    {\n        const string host = "yourhost.yourdomain.com";\n        const string serviceName = "yourservice.yourdomain.com";\n        const string userId = "foo";\n        const string password = "bar";\n\n        var conn = new OracleConnection();\n\n        // Construct a connection string using Method 1 or 2.\n        conn.ConnectionString =\n            GetConnectionStringMethod1(host, serviceName, userId, password);\n\n        try\n        {\n            conn.Open();\n            Console.WriteLine("Connection succeeded.");\n            // Do something with the connection.\n            conn.Close();\n        }\n        catch (Exception e)\n        {\n            Console.WriteLine("Connection failed: " + e.Message);\n        }\n    }\n\n    static private string GetConnectionStringMethod1(\n        string host,\n        string serviceName,\n        string userId,\n        string password\n        )\n    {\n        string format =\n            "SERVER=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)" +\n            "(HOST={0})(PORT=1521))" +\n            "(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)" +\n            "(SERVICE_NAME={1})));" +\n            "uid={2};" +\n            "pwd={3};"; // assumes port is 1521 (the default)\n\n        return String.Format(format, host, serviceName, userId, password);\n    }\n\n    static private string GetConnectionStringMethod2(\n        string host,\n        string serviceName,\n        string userId,\n        string password\n        )\n    {\n        string format =\n            "Data Source=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)" +\n            "(HOST={0})(PORT=1521))" +\n            "(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)" +\n            "(SERVICE_NAME={1})));" +\n            "User Id={2};" +\n            "Password={3};"; // assumes port is 1521 (the default)\n\n        return String.Format(format, host, serviceName, userId, password);\n    }\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p><strong>Final tip:</strong> If you encounter the error <em>"System.Data.OracleClient requires Oracle client software version 8.1.7"</em>, see <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/q/447983/1497596">this question</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 26469797, 'author': 'ecoe', 'author_id': 1080804, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1080804', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>As of 2014, the OPD.NET, Managed Driver is the smallest footprint.</p>\n\n<p>Here is a code usage comparison to the non-managed versions that previous (outdated) answers suggested:\n<a href="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E51173_01/win.122/e17732/intro005.htm#ODPNT148">http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E51173_01/win.122/e17732/intro005.htm#ODPNT148</a></p>\n\n<p>You will need to download these dlls and reference <code>Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.dll</code> in your project: \nDownload the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/windows/downloads/utilsoft-087491.html">ODP.NET, Managed Driver Xcopy version only</a></p>\n\n<p>Here is a typical foot print you will need to package with your release:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><code>Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.dll</code></li>\n<li><code>Oracle.ManagedDataAccessDTC.dll</code>  </li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>all together, a <em>whopping</em> 6.4 MB for .Net 4.0.</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/70602', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/6910/']