ED HAYES

Now that Windows 2003 is installed, and has at least one network device working, It is time to install all my third party software packages that Oracle requires. These are not easy folks!

Cygwin

For Cygwin, follow Metalink Note # 414992.1. If you don’t have access to Metalink (actually they changed the name to “My Oracle Support”, Oracle likes to confuse people as much as they can), just search the internet, and you can find a copy of the details somewhere. Oracle sure didn’t make this process easy! Cygwin can’t simply be installed with default settings; many additional items have to be selected and installed. Some of the server mirrors don’t have necessary files, so you have to try different ones. Additionally, there are additional steps after the Cygwin install that must be followed in order to get Oracle to accept the Linux like environment.

Microsoft Visual Studio

One of the hardest problems to solve was getting Microsoft Visual Studio installed, or at least the components that I needed. I thought I had it covered by following the guide and installing the Visual Studio 2005 redistributable file.

I thought everything was complete, so I started the Oracle installer. I followed all the directions and got to the “testing” phase where the Oracle Installer makes sure everything is in order and working correctly. Unsurprisingly, many things failed.

The first was the tools test, which I narrowed down to Visual Studio! I looked through the errors and found some information on the internet. I ended up installing Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition. I had to do this in order to get the “CL.exe” file that was needed later in the Oracle Instillation (as mentioned in the error log). I also had to add the folder path to the “Environment Variables” and I copied the CL.exe to the System32 directory. I don’t know if all of those were necessary, but Oracle seemed to be happy once I did that.

Host/DNS

The next thing that failed was the “host/domain” test. I tried for an hour to get that to work. I thought editing my domain’s DNS settings would solve the problem, and It never did. I figured I wasn’t going to use a domain name with my install anyway, so I continued the instillation an hour or so after I changed the DNS settings and with the test continually failing.

Two hours or so into the instillation, it failed. I looked up many different things on the internet, and found the problem could be caused by my lack of correct host/domain. To fix the problem I went back and verified my A Name was “oracle.edhayes.us” in my domain names DNS settings. I also verified it resolved to my real world IP address. After an hour or so more of Internet server prorogation, I tried the Oracle instillation test again, and still no success with the host/domain portion.

I did some more searching on the internet and found some more information. I went to system properties, computer name, more, and filled in the Domain prefix (I used oracle.edhayes.us). I tried doing some pinging in the command window, and it was pulling up the correct IP address, but the test was still failing. At this point I think the domain settings had propagated. I set my DMZ on my router to my laptop’s IP address. I dont know what combination of tricks did it, but all of the DMZ, DNS, and computer’s domain prefix got the Oracle installer host/domain test to successfully complete. Lets start the install again!