Oracle for WindowsNT FAQ

$Date: 04-Mar-1999 $
$Revision: 1.22 $
$Author: Frank Naudé $

Topics

Windows NT comes in two flavours: Workstation and Server. These terms are highly misleading, suggesting that a machine with server functions should run NT Server. That is not the case at all. The distinction between Workstation and Server is only important to NT itself. The Server product includes the NT domain administration tools and services. If you have more than one NT machine in a network you will probably want one of them to be an NT Server machine to act as the domain controller, but you probably DON'T want to run the Oracle database server on that machine.

The Oracle database server and tools will run equally well on an NT "Workstation" machine as on an NT "Server" machine, unless the Server machine is the Domain Controller for a busy domain, in which case it would be a poor choice to host a busy database server as well.

You may need to recreate the two services mentioned above. Do the following, assuming a SID of TEST.

If the services were not created, create them from the DOS command prompt using Oradimxx (where xx is the version, 73 for 7.3 or 80 for 8.0). NOTE: Each oradim command below should be typed as one line.

Open a DOS Command Prompt window.

- If neither service was created:

        oradimxx -new -sid TEST -intpwd ORACLE -startmode AUTO -pfile C:\ORANT\DATANASE\INITTEST.ORA

- If only OracleStartTEST was not created:

        oradimxx -delete -sid TEST
        oradimxx -new -sid TEST -intpwd ORACLE -startmode AUTO -pfile C:\ORANT\DATANASE\INITTEST.ORA

        net start "OracleAgent"
        net start "OracleStartSID"
        rem net start "OracleServiceSID" /y
        net start "OracleTNSListener"
        net start "OracleWWWListener9999"

These commands are handy if you need to shut down the database for a cold (offline) backup. Do not put this batch file in your Windows startup group as the database will then only start when someone logs onto the server. The database will not start if the server is re-booted and waits on the log-on screen.

The following registry entries are also handy to prevent a SHUTDOWN ABORT when the OracleServiceSID service is stopped:

        [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE]
        "ORA_SID_SHUTDOWN"="TRUE"
        "ORA_SID_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT"="60"

The NTBACKUP command will not backup open files. Also, OCOPYxx.exe (e.g. OCOPY80.EXE distributed with Oracle8.0) will not backup files to tape, only to another disk location. Once the hotbackup to disk is complete, you can use the NTBACKUP utility to backup the files to tape.

Note: If you perform a hot backup your databases must run in archivelog mode, otherwise shutdown and do a cold backup.

        C:>at 12:00pm "my_backup"
        Added a new job with job ID = 0

        C:>at
        Status ID   Day                     Time          Command Line
        ----------------------------------------------------------------
                0   Tomorrow                12:00 PM      my_backup

Also note that several alternatives exist to the AT command. For example, there is a GUI utility in the NT Resource Kit CD-ROM for scheduling jobs. This utility will (supposedly) become part of the OS with version 5.0. It's a lot more convenient to use than its command-line counterpart AT.

• Run the RegEdt32 program
• Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/ SOFTWARE/ ORACLE
• Go to Edit/ Add value and type in LOCAL
  
• When prompted for a String, enter your TNSNAMES.ORA alias.

• Make sure you have enough memory. If real memory on your system is limited, the CPU will spend considerable time paging and swapping.
• Change the machine configuration from the default "Maximize throughput for file sharing" to "Maximize throughput for network applications" (Right click on Network Neighborhood/ Services/ Server/ Properties).
• Remove any protocols not required from the installed network software list.
• Move the primary used protocol to the top of the list. writing to disk.
• Stop all unnecessary services on your machine.
• Use proper file placement so I/O is spread evenly across disks. If possible use RAID devices.
• Filesystem overhead can be eliminated by using raw devices.
• You get the best performance when all threads runs with NORMAL priority (see the ORACLE_PRIORITY registry value).
• The default DB_BLOCK_SIZE on NT is 2k, Increase this if you use your system for DSS queries.
• If all else fails, consider upgrading to Unix or MVS. You can migrate an Oracle database to a different platform without impacting your end-users.

• The Oracle DBA's guide to NT

• Microsoft's Windows NT Home Page

• Windows NT FAQ