TOAD for Oracle and Windows 7: Can't initialize OCI. Error -1

Question

I have a problem with TOAD for Oracle 9.1 running on Windows 7 32-bit, described as follows:

I have Oracle OraClient10g 10.0.2 installed on my PC, and I need to use Toad 9.1. When I try to log into a server, I specify the database via TNS, I type the user name and password, but I get a message with the following error:

Can't initialize OCI. Error -1

Googling around I got several options which include: check that the ORACLE_HOME environment variable is set right, run TOAD as administrator, check that the user name and password are correct, install Oracle and TOAD for 32-bit system... I have checked all those options but I am still getting the error.

There is, however, a detail I should mention: In my start menu, there are two Oracle Homes (Home1 and Home2). Home 2 points to an empty folder because I reinstalled Oracle during my attempts to solve the problem, and the short cut is still in my start menu. I don't think this is important, though, because ORACLE_HOME is pointing to the right home.

I really need help with this. I need to solve this error and log in using TOAD.

Answer 1

For me, This problem was caused by me setting ORACLE_HOME windows environment variable (permanently). I set this whilst trying to get "emctl" to work.

Once removed, TOAD worked fine.

Answer 2

I opened toad with administrator privilege (Right click -> Run as Administrator). The problem solved.

Thanks a lot!