Uninstalling Oracle 10g Manually from Windows XP

By Krishnamoorthy Sethuraman

List of additional steps to do for cleaning the system completely after uninstall using universal installer.
# Stop any Oracle services that have been left running.
Start->Settings->Control Panel->Services
Look for any services with names starting with ‘Oracle’ and stop them.
# Run regedit and delete the following keys (some may have slightly different names in your registry):
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
Note that the services control panel will still show the old services until you reboot.
# Delete the Oracle home directory
C:\Oracle
# Delete the Oracle Program Files directory:
C:\Program Files\Oracle
# Delete the Oracle Start Menu shortcuts directory:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Oracle*
Where * indicates the name of your install. Look for and remove all Oracle directories from that location.
# Remove Oracle refereces from the path. To edit your path go to:
Start->Settings->Control Panel->System->Advanced->Environment Variables
Edit both of the environment variables user PATH and system PATH. Remove any Oracle references in them.
# Remove Oracle.DataAccess and any Polic.Oracle files from the GAC which is at:
C:\Windows\assembly\

35 Responses to “Uninstalling Oracle 10g Manually from Windows XP”

  1. Anil Gidla Says:

    thanks for the information provided.

    Anil

  2. Sivakumar Says:

    Very Useful Posting..thanks for the information.

  3. phani kumar Says:

    i deleted all what you have mentioned above but still i am unable to delete a file called oci.dll .It says access is denied.how can i delete it?it is there in ORACLE_HOME\db_1\bin direcory.

  4. Kavitha Says:

    I am also stuck with the same problem of not being able to delete the oci.dll file in the ORACLE_HOME\db_1\bin directory. Any tips on this please?

  5. Kavitha Says:

    Got arnd the problem of deleting the oci.dll by just restarting my system and trying it again!! It actually worked!!

  6. Deep Says:

    Rename oci.dll to anything and delete after reboot…worked for me

  7. Arati Says:

    How do I delete the emctl.pid file

  8. suniel Says:

    Phani,
    reboot your system, and start it in safe mode. once started in safe mode, login and then delete the oci.dll.
    that will work.
    suniel

  9. Rianna Says:

    Successfully uninstalled Oracle, but when I tried reinstalling & get to the part of testing the listener: Oracle for Windows NT-> Oracle Net8 Easy Config is not opening at all. Help pleaaase

  10. Moid Says:

    Raina,

    Did you see if all of your services are running?

  11. Joe Mrozek Says:

    Delete oracle in the path environmental variable; reboot; and you should be able to remove all the files

  12. Mike Says:

    Thanks a lot.. great checklist. it helped me a lot

  13. vasanthkrishna Says:

    i install oracle 10g on windows Xp. when i run isql plus with Scott then it shows user locked .How i open that lock?

  14. Krishnamoorthy Sethuraman Says:

    From sql*Plus, use command:
    ALTER USER scott ACCOUNT UNLOCK

  15. Agyl Ardi Says:

    Great ! It is very useful… I’m sick thinking how to remove Oracle correctly

  16. Rose Says:

    Thankx so muck for the guidance to uninstall oracle 10g on ma Pc it had slowed down due to the oracle I installed on but am stuck on the point of being able to Remove Oracle.DataAccess and any Polic.Oracle files from the GAC which is at:
    c:\Windows\assembly\
    Well am getting in to c:\Windows but cant see the assembly folder or file advice me!

  17. syam Says:

    what is meant by sid?? i am unable to install oracle because its asking me to change sid??????Any help please

  18. RAHUL Says:

    thanks for the guidance to uninstall oracle 10g on ma Pc it had slowed down due to the oracle I installed on but am stuck on the point of being able to Remove Oracle.

  19. Sonu Says:

    Really good content…

  20. Ravi Krish Says:

    \app\oracle\product\10.2.0\server\BIN\msvcr71.dll & oci.dll are not getting deleted

  21. Jonathan Patil Says:

    Steps I took to completely remove Oracle 10g on my machine:
    ————————————————————————
    - Uninstall using 10g disc
    - Control Panel -> Classic View -> Admin Tools -> Services
    - Get rid of any ‘Oracle Services’ [none in this case for me]
    - There are some registry keys to get rid of [not all applied here for me]:
    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
    - reboot machine
    - on reboot, keeping tapping F8 until boot menu is displayed
    - From boot menu, select safe mode / with command prompt
    - del c:\oracle\product\10.2.0\client_1\bin\*.dll
    - Ctrl-Alt-Del -> Restart
    - Boot up normally, and delete rest of the oracle path from Windows Explorer

    JonP

  22. srikanth Says:

    Thank you very much for the post….

  23. Pavithra Says:

    do i hav to remove System.Data.OracleClient from C:\WINDOWS\assembly durin this process?

  24. JohnSmith Says:

    I can’t believe that it’s still not possible to remove Oracle by using the uninstaller – Also the tools to administer the database look like 20 years ago.

    Please Oracle – do us a favor and stop selling your database

  25. Tomas Says:

    Thank you very much!

  26. Sanjib Saha Says:

    I intalled Oracle 9i and Oracle 10g Report Builder, after that I am not able to connect my asp.net application to the database…Before Installing it was working fine..At the time of connecting it shows following error message:…

    “OCIEnvCreate faild with return code -1….”

    Please Help.

  27. Seun Says:

    this is very good i really enjoyed the process it was fine and it worked
    thanks for the tips

  28. pavan Says:

    sir!iam not able to remove service oracleservicexeit says systemerror3,path is miising

  29. Waheed Says:

    from where i can delete inventry file

  30. satya Says:

    sir,
    i use oracle 10g which slow downs the system my ram capacity is 512 so suggest me a best oracle version inorder to connect with .net and provide a link so that i can download. thankyou

  31. Jayanta Pati Says:

    Thanx for ur Information for how to Deinstall Oracle 10g DB in windows XP.

    Queries :

    1. How to Install IIS in windows XP Home and Windows Vista?
    2. How to uninstall Oracle from Windows Vista Edition?

  32. vikrant Says:

    when i tryed to open oracle 10g..it ask for username(i.e scott\tiger) and then ask for password and when i enter my password it shows an error “”"”ORA-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error”"” plz help me out

  33. Khalid Awan Says:

    For deleting a windows service:
    1. you need admin rights
    2. Open RUN and type cmd to start command prompt
    3. Type SC and press Enter, this will show you help for “SC” command.
    4. To stop a service type sc STOP

    5. To delete / uninstall a service type SC delete

    It works for me……

  34. How to uninstall Oracle 10g? - dBforums Says:

    [...] after that run REGEDIT. remove oracle entries . except for Microsoft driver for oracle. Uninstalling Oracle 10g Manually from Windows XP Krishnamoorthy’s Blog restart and delete the folder in i.e . c:program filesoracle and the oracle home folder where [...]

  35. amitesh Says:

    how do i install the oracle 10g if during installation it prompts..”Installer has detected an already instance of XE”. After that the set up is terminated.

Leave a Reply