Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed Written by John Pocknell Quest Software TECHNICAL BRIEF
Contents Contents... 1 Abstract... 2 Introduction... 3 Testing... 4 Possible Issues... 5 Issue 1 Product Installation... 5 Issue 2 Folder/File Access During Use... 5 Issue 3 Uninstall Failure... 6 Issue 4 Toolbars... 6 Issue 5 TNS Names Editor... 7 Issue 6 Toad Task Scheduler... 7 Issue 7 First Run Error... 7 So Which Versions of Toad Actually Support Windows 7?... 7 Conclusion... 9 About the Author... 10 Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 1
Abstract Quest Software conducted a variety of tests on early versions of Toad for Oracle, including 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.1, 9.5, 9.6, and 9.7, to gain a better perspective on its compatibility with the Windows 7 operating system. Toad for Oracle officially began supporting Windows 7 in v10.1. Therefore, Quest cannot guarantee that all functionality will work properly when using Toad versions prior to 10.1 on Windows 7 machines. Testing commonly used functionality resulted in the discovery of some very specific limitations, which are described in this technical brief. Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 2
Introduction Many companies are either migrating their enterprise desktops to the Microsoft Windows 7 platform, or they re considering doing so. This has led some Toad for Oracle customers to inquire about support for different versions of Toad on Windows 7 in order to decide whether they should upgrade to the latest version of Toad. Toad for Oracle officially started supporting Windows 7 in version 10.1. Toad version 9.1 officially began support for Windows Vista. Since Windows 7 and Windows Vista are very similar operating systems, it is presumable that Toad can work on Windows 7 as far back as Toad 9.1, but with some minor issues. Toad versions 8.0 and 8.5 were not certified on Windows Vista, which presents even more issues. This document outlines issues you may find when running Toad versions 8.0 through 9.7 on the then-unsupported Windows 7 operating system. Following extensive testing by our Toad QA team, the following is a summary of the extent to which different versions of Toad will function on Windows 7. Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 3
Testing The following criteria were established prior to testing Toad on Windows 7: 1. Toad user had full administrator privileges and User Account Control (UAC) turned off. 2. For consistency with earlier versions of Toad running on earlier versions of Windows, testing was carried out on Windows 7 32-bit (to avoid any variables with running on 64-bit). 3. All testing was conducted on Oracle 10g server/client (the latest Oracle version supported by Toad 9.0). Testing was conducted on Toad for Oracle versions 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.1, 9.5, 9.6, and 9.7. The testing process involved using the product to perform common tasks, such as: Installing and launching Toad Connecting to and disconnecting from the Oracle database server Doing basic Editor, Schema Browser, Query Builder, and Session Browser tasks HTML reports Using utilities such as FTP and scheduling Importing and exporting Oracle table data to and from external files Manipulating data grids PL/SQL profiling and debugging PLEASE NOTE: Since these tests were only carried out on a limited number of features, there may be additional functionality in these older versions of Toad for Oracle that does not work correctly on Windows 7. Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 4
Possible Issues This section summarizes the issues the Toad QA team found when testing older versions of Toad on Windows 7. Issue 1 Product Installation As mentioned above, Windows UAC was turned off during our tests. Many home users of Vista and Windows 7 also turn this off, but in a strict corporate environment, it may not be an option. It is fairly well known among customers familiar with Toad that one must have administrator rights to install the software on Windows. Due to this limitation, many customers use the silent install method to push out Toad installs over their network. If UAC is off, silent installs work well, but if UAC is on, it may cause issues for Toad versions 8.0 through 9.7. This issue was resolved in Toad 10. Here is the exact text from our release notes regarding this issue: Install/Uninstall If uninstalling Toad for Oracle 9.7 on Windows Vista using an extracted MSI installer (silent install) while UAC is on, Error 1721 will occur. In this case, Toad will uninstall, but application data files and some registry keys will not be removed. Turn UAC (User account control) off, or double click on "uninstall.exe" located in the Toad installation directory prior to uninstall. This will ensure all application data files/folders and registry keys are removed. If this error has already been encountered, the best course of action is to re-install Toad back into the same directory where it was installed before, follow the workaround, then uninstall. Issue 2 Folder/File Access During Use A second issue with Toad and UAC comes into play in Toad versions 8.0 to 9.6. Windows Vista/7 UAC uses data redirection with applications that try to write to the program files directory or any sub-folder within that directory. All Toad versions prior to 9.7 write configuration files to C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Toad for Oracle\User Files or something similar. In Toad 9.7, Toad began writing to Application Data (e.g., C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Quest Software\Toad for Oracle\9.7\), which eliminated this problem. If UAC is on and an application attempts to write to Program Files, Windows redirects all of this traffic (reads/writes) to the Application Data area (where we now read/write configuration files). It seems harmless, but it s not. In this case, certain files caused issues, which made Toad unusable until you manually relocated files on your hard drive. Here is the text from release notes regarding this issue: Windows Support Vista If you install Toad on Windows Vista with UAC (user access control) enabled, you may encounter file access errors Turn off UAC. If you don't have permission to do this, then when files are not found, such as lexlib.lxl, files may need to be renamed and/or moved to other locations. In the case of the lexlib.lxl error, you must copy this file from your local profile (where vista redirects your data) to your install directory \user files folder. If users try to run Toad versions 8.0 to 9.7 on Windows Vista, turning off UAC is highly recommended. In Windows 7, instead of on/off, Microsoft introduced various levels of UAC. The lowest level, never notify, is recommended in this Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 5
case. Toad versions 8.5 through 9.6 included an installation option called Citrix. Toad version 8.0 does not include this option. This Citrix option would behave in a similar way to how Toad behaves now and read/write configuration files to/from the application data directory. If UAC cannot be turned off, then the Citrix option can be a good workaround, if available. Another work-around would be to run the Toad application as an administrator. This option can be found via the right-click menu from the desktop shortcut. One may also be re-prompted to input a license key and create a new user file if UAC is toggled on/off between Toad sessions. Issue 3 Uninstall Failure The following error was seen while trying to uninstall Toad version 8.0 and 8.5: Could not open INSTALL.LOG file The application was not able to uninstall. The only work-around would be to manually delete files and registry entries. Keep in mind that this was before we switched to the MSI installer, so there is no need to run the MSI cleanup utility. Issue 4 Toolbars Toad versions prior to 10.0 had some issues with certain toolbar controls in Windows 7. Some issues include toolbars with black bars and button images not showing. In these cases, the toolbar controls still work, although the cosmetic issue may make it difficult to determine the function of a particular button. If users encounter cosmetic toolbar issues, it s recommended to hover over buttons to display the tooltip hint or to view the tooltip help in Toad s status bar, while hovering over the button. Toad 9.7 Editor Script output tab Toad 9.5 View Tablespaces (DBA Module) Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 6
Toad 9.5 Export File Browser (Professional Edition) Issue 5 TNS Names Editor In Toad 8.0 and 8.5, opening the TNSNames Editor and closing it may cause file corruption to tnsnames.ora file. Errors may occur while opening and using the TNS Names Editor. These issues were seen in Toad for Oracle v9.5. If errors are seen using the TNS Names Editor, don t use it. Close it down and edit your TNS Names file manually. It is not recommended to use the TNSNames Editor when using an older version of Toad on Windows 7. Issue 6 Toad Task Scheduler Errors may occur while scheduling Toad tasks via Toad task manager or any other Toad feature that interacts with the Windows task scheduler. In this case, it s best to go directly to the Windows task scheduler and verify the validity of any jobs created/scheduled by Toad. Issue 7 First Run Error On first run of Toad 8.0, the following error was seen, but did not reoccur: A component named dpoutputframe already exists Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 7
So Which Versions of Toad Actually Support Windows 7? The following table shows which versions of Windows are or are not supported by Toad for Oracle. For more information, please view our Support Portal for Toad and click on the Product Lifecycle Table tab. X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Toad for Oracle Windows support matrix Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 8
Conclusion The main problem that users are likely to encounter when trying to use Toad for Oracle versions 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.1, 9.5, 9.6, and 9.7 on Windows 7 (or Vista) are related to UAC and will severely affect their ability to use the product. This may be a difficult problem to overcome for users whose companies require UAC to be enabled for all Windows 7 desktops. In addition, Toad for Oracle relies on several third-party components and, therefore, older versions of Toad cannot be guaranteed to work with Windows 7. In Version 10.1, as part of our QA process, we performed extensive testing on Windows 7 and have ensured that the product (with all its third-party components) is supported on Windows 7. Although it is possible to run older versions of Toad on Windows 7 with some limitations, it is not recommended and not supported. This means that, should you encounter technical problems on Windows 7 while using these versions of Toad, you should upgrade to a newer version of Toad because Quest will not be able to provide an alternate resolution. Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 9
About the Author John Pocknell is a product manager at Quest Software. Based in the European headquarters in Maidenhead, U.K., John has worldwide responsibility for the Toad for Oracle and SQL Optimizer products. He has been with Quest since 2000, working in the database design, development, and deployment product areas and has run many Toad training courses for customers. John has spent the last ten years successfully evangelizing Toad to customers at various events throughout Europe, the U.S. and the Asia Pacific region. He writes many blogs and papers, which are published on the Toad user community, Toad World. John has worked in IT for more than 20 years, during which time he s amassed a wealth of expertise in Oracle application design and development. He is a qualified aeronautical engineer who spent more than 10 years as a business development manager, provisioning IT consultancy services and implementing quality assurance systems for ISO 9001. Toad for Oracle Compatibility with Windows 7 Revealed 10
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TECHNICAL BRIEF About Quest Software, Inc. Quest Software (Nasdaq: QSFT) simplifies and reduces the cost of managing IT for more than 100,000 customers worldwide. Our innovative solutions make solving the toughest IT management problems easier, enabling customers to save time and money across physical, virtual and cloud environments. For more information about Quest solutions for application management, database management, Windows management, virtualization management and IT management, go to www.quest.com. Contacting Quest Software PHONE 800.306.9329 (United States and Canada) If you are located outside North America, you can find your local office information on our Web site. EMAIL MAIL sales@quest.com Quest Software, Inc. World Headquarters 5 Polaris Way Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 USA Contacting Quest Support Quest Support is available to customers who have a trial version of a Quest product or who have purchased a commercial version and have a valid maintenance contract. Quest Support provides around-the-clock coverage with SupportLink, our Web self-service. Visit SupportLink at https://support.quest.com. SupportLink gives users of Quest Software products the ability to: Search Quest s online Knowledgebase Download the latest releases, documentation and patches for Quest products Log support cases Manage existing support cases View the Global Support Guide for a detailed explanation of support programs, online services, contact information and policies and procedures. 5 Polaris Way, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 PHONE 800.306.9329 WEB www.quest.com EMAIL sales@quest.com If you are located outside North America, you can find local office information on our Web site. 2011 Quest Software, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Quest, Quest Software, the Quest Software logo [and product name] are registered trademarks of Quest Software, Inc. in the U.S.A. and/or other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. TBD-ToadOracle-Windows7Comp-US-KS-20110413