How do I do a manual uninstall of Oracle?

Question

Sometimes my Oracle database on Windows gets hosed. How do I do a manual uninstall of Oracle?

Answer 1

The six-step process to remove all things Oracle from a Windows machine:

A. Delete the Oracle services: In the registry, go to \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services and delete everything that starts with "Oracle"

B. Remove other Oracle stuff from the registry: Go to \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ and delete the key ORACLE

C. Reboot

D. Delete all the Oracle software from the directories where you installed it

E. Delete the Oracle software inventory: Delete the directory C:\Program Files\Oracle. You must do this no matter where you installed your Oracle software - the Oracle installer automatically writes information here.

F. Delete all shortcuts from your Start menu.

G. Remove the Oracle directories from PATH Environment Variable.

To simplify cleanup in the future, I'd strongly recommend you install your Oracle products in one or more virtual machines.

Answer 2

Have a look at:

http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/misc/ManualOracleUninstall.php

Basically, it comes down to:

Remove all you can with the installer. Remove Oracle keys from the registry. Remove the Oracle directories from your computer.

With (of course) the requisite reboots thrown in as required ;-)

Answer 3

It's worth noting that there is an official Oracle standalone deinstaller: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e47689/remove_oracle_sw.htm#LADBI1332, which I just used to uninstall Oracle 11 client. This is not necessarily better or easier to use than the top suggestion on this page, but it is "official".

One thing to note - if you use the official deinstaller, it does not like the temp folder to have spaces in it. So if you have it set to "Documents and Settings...\temp" it will fail. Use the control panel environment settings button to SET the TEMP folder first.

Answer 4

Uninstall Oracle 10g from window 7, Xp

step 1 : Open up the start menu and in program files look for oracle – oraDb10g_home folder, and select oracle installation products – > Universal Installer.

step 2 : Select Deinstall Product, which will pop up new window , select check box oracleDb10g_home1 as shown below. Click on remove button. This will remove oracle.

step 3 : Remove the registration file from Regedit, in order to remove oracle 10g completely. Run Regedit.

Delete the following keys if it exits after the un-installation.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ORACLE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application\Oracle.oracle HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\OracleDBConsole HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Oracle10g_home HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\OraclService

step 4 : Now delete the folder where you have installed the software. By default, it is installed in c drive as C:\oracle and from C:\programs files\oracle.

Hence by doing this steps successfully, Oracle 10g is removed completely. If you are having any problem in removing or uninstalling the program,(oracle ) then do comment below, we will look on that.

Answer 5

The tips for using a VM enviroment is the best: no worries about deinstalling. Just install a complete Oracle enviroment and after one succesfull run: winrar the VM ... after corrupting the Oracle home once again: just delete the current VM and unrar the backup

Answer 6

Assuming a unix type OS and that you properly installed it using an account named oracle...

find / -user oracle -exec rm -fr {} \;

That having been said, this must be done as root and you had better not mind loss of any and all files that belong to oracle. There will be no... NO recovery from this method.