Access 2003 ODBC front end for Oracle 9i Database

Currently I have the above combination working perfectly. Using a file DSN (Oracle in Oracle driver) I am connecting to the Oracle 9i server using MS Access 2003 with linked tables.

Unfortunately, there are so many Oracle Apps in my company of varying versions and configurations, I am unable to install the 9i client on some of my Ad-Hoc user's machines. My install works fine, but is disabling some of the older apps.

I have heard that it is possible to have some DLL's and perhaps the SQLNET and TNSNAMES files present on the workstation WITHOUT the client installed and be able to use the Microsoft Oracle ODBC driver to connect. But my attempts have failed. I am just beginning to learn ODBC connectivity and how it works.
I also downloaded the 10g "Instant Client", as it sounds like exactly what I need, but that did not work. Most likely because my database and listener are 9i.

Can anyone offer me some advice or direction? I am not naive enough to think that I can get an ODBC connection to Oracle without some software present, but shouldn't there be some way to have only the necessary files present so I can connect without messing up older apps? Thanks in advance...

James Received on Tue Jan 04 2005 - 14:46:13 CST