Hi There,

Just thought i'd add my 2 cents worth.

The Oracle 7.3 ODBC drivers (ie 2.05 series) were fine. Every Oracle 8 driver I have tried has had *major* problems. In particular, they seem to be unable to cope with LONG columns, and even sometimes VARCHAR2(2000) columns. Some even seem to have really odd conflicts with VFP itself (bugs registered with Oracle).

We have ditched the Oracle drivers now in favour of the MDAC 2.5 series and they work fine. NT can be quirky - I think you have to install as an Administrator. Also be aware that Oracle will look for libraries (DLLs and others) in its location (\ORANT\BIN) and MDAC will look first in sysdir (\WINNT\SYSTEM) before \ORANT\BIN. So make sure that your installation process does not put any Oracle DLLs into sysdir, or you might have odd conflicts (rare, but has happened).

MDAC has the added advantage that VFP developers are allowed to distribute them with their apps, but Oracle drivers cannot - you have to rely on the client to get the right drivers (not always easy!).

One final point, be very careful if you install Net*8 client over SQL*Net 2.3. Oracle tools will recognise the upgrade and go to Net*8 tnsnames.ora file, but I am pretty sure that MDAC still looks at the SQL*Net 2.3 tnsnames.ora file.

(Please excuse the Oracle jargon - I'll elucidate if you like)

Cheers

Les