How does System.Data.OracleClient finds installed OracleClient

Question

I wonder how does library System.Data.OracleClient finds installed on machine OracleClient. I've reinstalled the client, but still get error "OracleClient requires Oracle client software", which seem rather suspicious, because client is installed on pc, it has entries in registry and path to oracle client in PATH variable.

Answer 1

This works for me:

1. Add the environment variable ORACLE_HOME, with the value equal to the base of the install directory (e.g. C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\client_1)
2. Make sure that %ORACLE_HOME%\bin\ is in the PATH (the setup program should have already put it in there)

Agreed that using ODP.NET is better than deprecated System.Data.OracleClient.