Find out Oracle client version

Question

Hi!
Is there a water-proof way to find out which version of Oracle Client is installed? I need to do this in C#.
thanks!
Miro

Answer 1

Hi Miro,
I've taken yet another approach. Checking registry this time. The program should view every Oracle_Home, Oracle_Home_Name, and Version if present out of Windows 32-bit registry. (detection starting from Oracle9 and up)
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.Win32;
namespace CheckForOracle
class Program
static void Main(string[] args)
Program pr = new Program();
pr.CheckOracleClient();
public void CheckOracleClient()
try
string[] Keynames;
string oracle_home, oracle_home_name, oracle_version;
RegistryKey HKLM = Registry.LocalMachine;
RegistryKey Orcl = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(@"SOFTWARE\\ORACLE", false);
RegistryKey SubKeyBufor;
if (Orcl == null)
Console.WriteLine("Missing Oracle!!! Please install Oracle from http://www.oracle.com/downloads");
else
Console.WriteLine("Installed Oracle Distribution");
Keynames = Orcl.GetSubKeyNames();
for (int i = 0; i < Keynames.Length; i++)
if (Keynames.Contains("KEY") || Keynames[i].StartsWith("HOME"))
SubKeyBufor = HKLM.OpenSubKey(@"SOFTWARE\\ORACLE\\" + Keynames[i], false);
string[] vnames;
vnames = SubKeyBufor.GetValueNames();
Console.WriteLine("\nOracle Client 32-bit");
for (int j = 0; j < vnames.Length; j++)
if (vnames[j].Equals("ORACLE_HOME"))
oracle_home = SubKeyBufor.GetValue(vnames[j]).ToString();
if (oracle_home == null)
Console.WriteLine("Oracle Home: missing info in registry" + oracle_home);
else
Console.WriteLine("Oracle Home: " + oracle_home);
if (vnames[j].Equals("ORACLE_HOME_NAME"))
oracle_home_name = SubKeyBufor.GetValue(vnames[j]).ToString();
if (oracle_home_name == null)
Console.WriteLine("Oracle Home Name: missing info in registry" + oracle_home_name);
else
Console.WriteLine("Oracle Home Name: " + oracle_home_name);
if (vnames[j].Equals("VERSION"))
oracle_version = SubKeyBufor.GetValue(vnames[j]).ToString();
if (oracle_version == null)
Console.WriteLine("Oracle Version: missing info in registry" + oracle_version);
else
Console.WriteLine("Oracle Version: "+ oracle_version);
catch (Exception e) { Console.WriteLine(e.ToString()); }
Console.WriteLine("\nPress key to exit");
Console.ReadKey();
The next step in evolution of this program is to access 64-bit Windows registry, which is accessed in a slight different way,
but the idea of detecting Oracle stays the same.
Hope it was helpfull.
Regs,
Mariusz