What's the best way to determine which version of Oracle client I'm running?

user_4782 0
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The subject says it all: What is the best way to determine the exact version of the oracle client I'm running? Our clients are all running Windows.

I found one suggestion to run the tnsping utility, without parameters, which does display the version information. Is there a better way?

Does the client install put this information in any sort of text file?

oracle windows
14 Answers

TNSPing command line will show the version. similarly, sqlPlus.exe will print its version. You can also go to the readme files in the 'relnotes' directory of your client install. Version 10.2 has a file named README_jdbc.txt, for example, which will tell you which version has been installed.

user_1030430

In Unix

If you don’t know the location or version of installed Oracle product, you can find it from the inventory which is usually recorded in /etc/oraInst.loc

> cat /etc/oraInst.loc

inventory_loc=/export/oracle/oraInventory       **--> Inventory location**
inst_group=dba


> cd /export/oracle/oraInventory
> cd ContentsXML

Here look for a file inventory.xml

> cat inventory.xml
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 1999, 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved. -->
<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->
<INVENTORY>
<VERSION_INFO>
   <SAVED_WITH>11.2.0.2.0</SAVED_WITH>
   <MINIMUM_VER>2.1.0.6.0</MINIMUM_VER>
</VERSION_INFO>
<HOME_LIST>
<HOME NAME="OraDB_11G" LOC="/export/oracle/product/11.2.0.2" TYPE="O" IDX="2">

Once you know the install location 

export ORACLE_HOME=full path to install location
export ORACLE_HOME=/export/oracle/product/11.2.0.2
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH

A simple "sqlplus" will give you the version of the client installed.

> sqlplus
SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.1.0 Production on Fri Mar 23 14:51:09 2012
Copyright (c) 1982, 2010, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Enter user-name:

In the above example, the version of Oracle client is 11.2.0.1

In Windows

Registry location variable in windows is INST_LOC

Start > Run > regedit > HKLM > Software > Oracle

Check the Inst_loc entry value which will be the software installed location.

You can use command prompt or you can navigate/explore to the oracle home location and then cd to bin directory to lauch sqlplus which will give you the client version information.

user_12887570

you can use the following command in SQL Developer or SQLPLUS in command prompt to find out the Oracle server version number.

select * from v$version;

in my case it gave me the below mentioned info.

Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production
PL/SQL Release 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
"CORE   11.2.0.1.0  Production"
TNS for 64-bit Windows: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
user_68291840

Run the installer, click "Installed Products...". This will give you a more detailed list of all installed components of the client install, e.g., drivers, SQL*Plus, etc.

Typical Oracle installations will store inventory information in C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory, but figuring out the installed versions isn't simply a matter of opening a text file.

This is AFAIK authoritative, and shows any patches that might have been applied as well (which running the utilities does not do).

EDIT: A CLI option would be to use the OPatch utility:

c:\> path=%path%;<path to OPatch directory in client home, e.g., C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\client_1\OPatch>
c:\>set ORACLE_HOME=<oracle home directory of client, e.g., C:\Oracle\product\10.2.0\client_1>
c:\>opatch lsinventory

This gives you the overall version of the client installed.

DCookie_86700

This is another, though not necessarily "better", way:

Determining Your Current Version

To determine which Oracle client version you have installed on your pc, run sql*plus to connect to the DW. The folder names may vary somewhat based on your Oracle setup but should be similar. To run sql*plus choose start > programs > Oracle > Oracle - OUDWclient > Application Development > sqlplus. Enter your DW user name, password, and 'ordj' for the host name or service name. This should connect you to the DW via sqlplus. At this point, you could write your own sql statements to pull information from the DW (if you knew sql). The Oracle client version can be determined in the first line - 'SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.1.0'.

[Reference] Oracle Client Information http://www.ohio.edu/technology

user_1380880

You should put a semicolon at the end of select * from v$version;.

Like this you will get all info you need...

If you are looking just for Oracle for example you can do as:

SQL> select * from v$version where banner like 'Oracle%';
user_12860990

I am assuming you want to do something programatically.

You might consider, using getenv to pull the value out of the ORACLE_HOME environmental variable. Assuming you are talking C or C++ or Pro*C.

EvilTeach_77340

You can get the version of the oracle client by running this command sqlplus /nolog on cmd. Another alternative will be to browse to the path C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory and open the "Inventory.xml" file which will give you the version as per below:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 1999, 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates.
All rights reserved. -->
<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->
<INVENTORY>
<VERSION_INFO>
   <SAVED_WITH>12.2.0.1.4</SAVED_WITH>
   <MINIMUM_VER>2.1.0.6.0</MINIMUM_VER>
</VERSION_INFO>
user_116689720
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