Downloading the Oracle Instant Client and Creating an .msi Package for It

Before you can add Oracle 11g Instant Client support to your Basic MSI, InstallScript, or InstallScript MSI project, you must download the Oracle Instant Client from Oracle’s Web site. Oracle does not provide an installation for the files, so you also need to create an .msi package; you can do so easily by using the Oracle Instant Client installation project that is available in the InstallShield Program Files folder.

Once you have created the .msi package, you can add it to the appropriate folder on your machine, and then add the InstallShield prerequisite that uses this Oracle Instant Client .msi package.

Note that if your SQL script contains Unicode characters, you may want to use the Oracle ODBC Instant Client, since it has support for running SQL scripts that contain Unicode characters, but Microsoft ODBC for Oracle does not. You may want to include an ODBC Instant Client installation with the Oracle 11g Instant Client prerequisite to help configure the Oracle Instant Client on target machines, and to also set up the ODBC Instant Client. For more information, see Downloading the Oracle Basic Instant Client and the Oracle ODBC Instant Client and Creating an .msi Package and InstallShield Prerequisite for Both.

Visit http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/instant-client/index-097480.html and download the 11.1.0.x version of the Oracle Instant Client (the Basic package for 32-bit Windows platforms). The download file is called instantclient-basic-win32-11.1.0.7.0.zip.

Important

The Oracle support in InstallShield requires that the target system have the 32-bit version of the Oracle Instant Client, regardless of whether the target system is a 32-bit or 64-bit system.

Unzip the files to the root of your C drive. Unzipping the files adds all of the files to the following location:

C:\instantclient_11_1

Open the Oracle Instant Client installation project in InstallShield. The path for the project is as follows:

InstallShield Program Files Folder\Support\Oracle Instant Client\instantclient-win32-11_1.ism

Flexera Software created this project for the 11.1.0.7 version of the Oracle Instant Client; however, you can use this same project for more-recent versions of the Oracle 11g Instant Client, such as 11.2.01, for example.

The name that is displayed at run time during the Oracle 11g Instant Client installation is Oracle11g Instant Client 11.1.0.7; this name is also used for the .msi file. If you want to change this name to something else to reflect a different version number, such as 11.2.0.1 or 11.2.0.x, you can do so:

In the View List under Installation Information, click General Information.

In the Product Name setting, edit the existing text as needed.

If you are using a version that was released after 11.1.0.7 and it requires any dependencies, add the files or merge modules to the project.

On the toolbar, click the Build button.

InstallShield builds an Oracle 11g Instant Client .msi file and adds it to the following directory so that you can include the Oracle 11g Instant Client in your InstallShield projects:

If you are using a version that was released after 11.1.0.7, open the Oracle 11g Instant Client 11.1.0.7 prerequisite in the InstallShield Prerequisite Editor. Rename the prerequisite to reflect the appropriate version number. In addition, update the conditions to reflect the appropriate version number.