Installing 32 and 64-bit Oracle client but 32-bit installer crashes

Question

I am trying to install Oracle 12c instant 32-bit client alongside my 64-bit installation because I can't connect Visual Studio to the 64-bit version (throws BadImageFormatException). I run the installer and give it another directory for home, so it's like this:

64-bit: D:\app\MyUser\product\12.1.0\dbhome_1 (previously installed)

32-bit: D:\app\Lazar\product\12.1.0\dbhome_x84

The installer performs the checks and sends me to next step. I click install and it crashes!

Can someone please help?

Answer 1

I've actually run into the same problem. It looks like it is some sort of issue with the registry.

It appears to be a missing registry entry for the location of the Oracle Inventory. The below blog explains the following steps to add the missing registry key:

1. Open regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node
3. Create a new key with name "Oracle"
4. Go to Oracle and then create a new String Value with name "inst_loc"
5. Give the value as "C:\Program Files (x86)\Oracle\Inventory"
6. Retry installation

This blog post has more detail on the fix (though not much) and is where I originally found my solution.

https://oracledba1949.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/oracle-12-1-0-2-32bit-client-installation-on-windows-2012-x64bit/