How To Configure Oracle Instant Client

January 4th, 2011

This article is a step-by-step instruction for configuring Oracle Instant Client so that our tools for Oracle could work with it.

1. Download Oracle Instant Client

You can download Basic Instant Client package using one of the following links (depending on your platform):

2. Extract client files

Extract content of the .zip archive to the desired destination folder. For example,


3. Add client folder to PATH

Add the full path to Instant Client folder (C:\ORACLE\INSTANT in our case) to PATH environment variable. A reboot may be required.

4. Add TNS_ADMIN variable

Add TNS_ADMIN environment variable that tells the client where to look for tnsnames.ora file. In our example, it will point to the client’s folder.


5. Add NLS_LANG variable

Add NLS_LANG environment variable if localization is required. For example,


Reboot your computer.

6. Create registry file

Create the inst_ora.reg file with the following content:

Windows Registry Editor Version  5.00
"ORACLE_GROUP_NAME"="Oracle  -  OraHome"
"ORACLE_GROUP_NAME"="Oracle  -  OraHome"

ORACLE_HOME value is set for this example. You’ll need to set your own value. Same for ORACLE_SID and NLS_LANG variables.

7. Register client

Launch inst_ora.reg file adding data to the registry.


Oracle Instant Client is ready for work.

4 Responses to “How To Configure Oracle Instant Client”

  1. Jeroen Says:

    Some “\” are not displaying in your registry settings

  2. dbForge Team Says:

    We have fixed this problem. Thank you.

  3. Tom Says:

    How on earth do Devart think large corporations, that have large purchasing power, are able to allow their developers to make such extensive changes to their locked down terminals in order to trial dbForge? The time it would take to get approval and have these changes applied would be ridiculous.

    Looks like I’m back to diff’ing using SQL output text!

  4. Tom Says:

    Missing a lot of backslashes…

    Couldn’t this work just using ORACLE_HOME like everything else seems to?

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