Vbscript to connect to oracle fails with ORA-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error

Question

I am running a Windows 7, 64 bit system with the Oracle 32 bit client installed.  The 32 bit client is required for use with Oracle's Documaker Studio which is working fine with the current client configuration.  I would like to connect the same database using a vbscript.  Here is the test script I am using:
Option Explicit
Dim strCon
strCon = "Driver={Oracle in OraClient11g_home1_32bit}; " & _
         "CONNECTSTRING=(DESCRIPTION=" & _
         "(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)" & _
         "(HOST={VSTODEEDATxx.xxxxxxx.com})(PORT=1521))" & _
         "(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=IDMAKER))); uid=xxxxxx;pwd=xxxxxxxx;"
Dim oCon: Set oCon = WScript.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Dim oRs: Set oRs = WScript.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
oCon.Open strCon
Set oRs = oCon.Execute("SELECT TO_CHAR(SYSDATE,'MM-DD-YYYY HH24:MI:SS') AS DateTime FROM DUA")
While Not oRs.EOF
    WSCript.Echo oRs.Fields(0).Value
    oRs.MoveNext
Wend
oCon.Close
Set oRs = Nothing
Set oCon = Nothing
In the connection string I am using the 32 bit driver used succesfully by Documaker.  I provided all the parms to eliminate the need for tnsnames.ora.  However, I do have tnsnames.ora on my system and Documaker is using it.
Since the client is 32 bit, I am using the following command to run the script:
c:\windows\syswow64\cscript.exe c:\temp\oracle\testing\testconnect.vbs
This is suppose to run the script in 32 bit mode and be compatible with the client.
When I run the program I get the following error:
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
c:\temp\oracle\testing\testconnect.vbs(12, 1) Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC
Drivers: [Oracle][ODBC][Ora]ORA-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
Would someone please advise on how to debug this problem?  Thanks, Gary

Answer 1

"connectstring" is not a valid attribute with Oracle's ODBC driver, so since there is no datasource attribute specified, the app is trying to connect to a local database, and since you don't have one, you get 12560.
To resolve the problem, pass DBQ=      instead of  CONNECTSTRING=
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b15658/app_odbc.htm#i1093897
Greg