Re: uninstalling oracle

"C.O.Jones" <nospam.ple_at_se> wrote in message news:%POvc.3725$mM5.38184027_at_news-text.cableinet.net...
> I have Oracle 8i installed on my Windows XP machine,
> I'd like to completely remove all trace of it, then do a clean
> reinstall.
>
> I've tried Oracle Universal Installer -> Deinstall products.
> I selected all products to deinstall and it now shows no
> installed products, but I can still run all the tools from
> the start menu. Of course, they produce a lot of error
> messages.
>
> So, how do I uninstall it? TVM.

Hunt around the archives for this newsgroup at Google for more precise answers, but as I've said on other occasions, the install onto Windows is extremely virus-like as far as I am concerned: the Universal Installer refuses to uninstall itself, and it does indeed (as you've found) get very messy. A clean Windows installation once subjected to an Oracle installation will never be rid of Oracle entirely, which is why I always image my Windows machines before I start (using Ghost). An Oracle uninstallation then becomes a matter of re-ghosting my machine.

Now, obviously it's too late for you to do that, and it is a tad drastic as solutions go, anyway (though very eay and convenient). So you're going to have to do it the hard way, which is to manually trawl through your registry (take a backup before you start!) and delete any keys which include the words 'Oracle' or 'Ora' -though use some commonsense about it. Just because there's a key there called 'tempORAry something or other' doesn't mean to say it should be deleted!

Reboot once the registry has been cleansed, and things should be OK.

As I say, there are more specific instructions floating around the web, and you may find them in the Google archives for this group.

Good luck
HJR Received on Thu Jun 03 2004 - 19:28:06 CDT