Installing Oracle Products for Windows and DOS 
 
Read this if you are installing your Oracle products for Windows onto 
a workstation that already has either DOS products or older Windows products. 
 
 
Oracle Home Directories 
 
The Oracle Installer places most Oracle products for Windows into a separate 
Oracle home directory from Oracle products for DOS. The default Oracle home 
directory for Windows is \ORAWIN. The default Oracle home directory for DOS is 
either \ORADOS for products designed for the V3 Oracle Installer or \ORACLE6 
for products that were designed for the V2 Oracle Installer. 
 
Note:  The default DOS Oracle home directory for products installed by the 
older V2 Oracle Installer is \ORACLE6. When a V2 directory structure is 
migrated to the V3 directory structure, the name of the directory remains the 
same. So, if the DOS directory name was \ORACLE6, it remains \ORACLE6. 
 
However, some older Oracle and 3rd party products for Windows are installed in 
the Oracle home directory for DOS. These products include, but are not limited 
to, the following products: 
     - Oracle Card for Windows 1.x 
     - Oracle for Windows (DDE Manager/Toolbook Interface) 1.x 
     - Run Form for Windows 3.x 
     - Run Menu for Windows 5.x 
     - SQL*Plus for Windows 3.0.x 
     - Oracle Business Manager 1.x 
 
If you use these products, you must follow the guidelines described in the 
following paragraphs to maintain compatibility with other Windows and DOS 
products. 
 
 
Configuration Files 
 
Current Windows Oracle products look for configuration parameters in the 
ORACLE.INI file in your \WINDOWS directory. DOS Oracle products and older 
Windows products look for configuration parameters in the CONFIG.ORA file. The 
CONFIG.ORA file is located either in the \XBIN subdirectory of your V3 DOS 
Oracle home directory, or in your V2 Oracle home directory. Make sure that the 
following parameters in your ORACLE.INI file are duplicates of the parameters 
in you CONFIG.ORA file. 
     - LOCAL 
     - REMOTE 
     - SQLNET DBNAME 
     - INTERRUPT 
     - TCP_SERVICES_FILE 
 
If a parameter exists in one file and not the other, add the parameter to the 
file that does not contain it. If a parameter does not exist in either your 
ORACLE.INI file or CONFIG.ORA file, you do not need to add it to either file. 
If the parameter exists in both files, make sure they are set to the same 
value. 
 
Also make sure that the SET CONFIG or SET CONFIG_FILES command in your 
AUTOEXEC.BAT file points to your CONFIG.ORA file, not your ORACLE.INI file. 
The Oracle Installer will warn you if your CONFIG environment variable is set 
incorrectly. For more information about the CONFIG variable, see your DOS 
products documentation. 
 
 
The DOS Path and Oracle Home for Windows 
 
Since Oracle DLLs are now stored in the \ORAWIN\BIN directory and not the 
\ORACLE6\BIN directory, older Windows products and 3rd party products must be 
configured to use the DLLs in the new \ORAWIN\BIN directory. To do this, the 
Installer will ask you if you want it to modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to put 
the \ORAWIN\BIN directory on your DOS search path. Answer 'Yes' if you are 
using older Windows products that require new Oracle DLLs, or a combination of 
old and new Windows products that require the same DLLs. For example, you must 
put \ORAWIN\BIN on the DOS path if you are using Oracle Card 1.1 with a recent 
version of SQL*Net for Windows. 
 
 
ORA6WIN.DLL 
 
Older Windows products and many 3rd party products are shipped with an 
ORA6WIN.DLL file, which enables these products to operate under Windows. You 
must make sure that the most recent version of this file is used by all these 
products. To do this, you should put the most recent ORA6WIN.DLL file in your 
\ORAWIN\BIN directory and you should delete or rename all other ORA6WIN.DLL 
files from your workstation and from other locations available to your 
workstation via your network. You should also make sure that the \ORAWIN\BIN 
directory is on your DOS path as described in the above paragraph.  
 
If the installer detects obsolete ORA6WIN.DLL files, it will ask you if you 
want it to rename them. However, you also should check for this file yourself; 
the Installer will not search all possible locations. This is especially 
important if you are using products on a network. 
 
 
Running DOS Products within Windows 
 
You may use Oracle DOS products within Windows provided you run SQLPME before 
starting Windows and run Windows in standard mode, not enhanced mode. However, 
to let Windows run, you must limit the amount of memory that SQLPME will use. 
Otherwise, SQLPME may use all available memory and prevent Windows from 
running. 
 
In order to force a ceiling on how much memory SQLPME will use, add the 
following line to your CONFIG.ORA file in your DOS Oracle home directory: 
 
DYNAMIC_MEMORY=X 
 
This will force all ORACLE protected mode products for DOS to run in no more 
than X kilobytes of extended memory. Windows will then use the memory that is 
not used by SQLPME. Make sure you set X low enough to allow enough free memory 
for Windows to run and high enough to allow DOS Oracle products to run. Also, 
do not set X higher than 16000. 
 
When running DOS Oracle products from within Windows you must use DOS SQL*Net, 
not Windows SQL*Net, to connect to a remote database.  Windows SQL*Net 
products are only supported in Windows enhanced mode not standard mode. 
 
If you are running Windows in enhanced mode, you cannot run DOS Oracle 
products within Windows. You must not run SQLPME before running Windows in 
enhanced mode. 
