Oracle ODBC ERROR [IM004] [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Driver's SQLAllocHandle on SQL_HANDLE_ENV

Question

1. I have installed the Oracle client 10g (release 10.2.0.1) on to a windows 2008 64bit machine.
2. I have set up the tnsname.ora file, checked the path (starts with path to oracle client folder) and oracle_home variables.
3. I have also checked the security permissions on the client folder and this has read/write for the authenticated user.
4. I set up an ODBC32 connection using the Oracle Oracle Driver (as opposed to the Microsoft one) and tested connection successfully.
5. I set the Runtime64Bit property in the project in SSIS (SQL Server 2008 R2) to false.

When I try to test connection of this ODBC DataSource in SSIS I get this error

Test connection failed because of an error in initializing provider. ERROR [IM004] [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Driver's SQLAllocHandle on SQL_HANDLE_ENV failed

Answer 1

I would specify the entire connection string in the SSIS Data Connection.

You do not need to rely on the ODBC connections defined on the machine (which get buried in the registry) or in files. You can then use SSIS Configuration / Project Parameters to control the details.

Answer 2

I uninstalled the 10g client and installed the 11g client (as the 11g works with 10g databases) and then used an ADO.Net connection with the .Net Providers\OracleClient Data Provider.

This worked, seems the 10g client doesn't play very well with Windows 2008.