Connecting Toad to Oracle 7 & 8 servers

Some sites suggest using Instant client for Oracle with Toad on wine. However Instant Client only works with Oracle 8.1.7 and above. As I manage a few Oracle 8.1.5 servers, I am unable to connect to them.

However you can use the old Oracle 8i Client files for Toad to use, so that you can connect back to Oracle 7 or 8

1. You need to install Oracle 8i Client in a windows machine first
   
2. Copy the files from C:\oracle\bin\*.dll to Linux wine C:\oracle\bin\*.dll
   Copy the files from C:\oracle\lib\ to Linux wine C:\oracle\lib\
   Copy the files from C:\oracle\ocommon\nls\ADMIN\DATA\ to Linux wine C:\oracle\lib\nls\ADMIN\DATA\
   
3. set ORACLE_HOME in registry to C:\oracle
   
4. setup your C:\oracle\NETWORK\ADMIN\tnsnames.ora as normal
   
5. install Toad as normal
   

This method takes up only 22MB on my system, instead of 90MB for Instant Client. Moreover Oracle 8i Client can also connect to even 9 and 10G servers