error 3706 provider cannot be found. it may not be properly installed

Question

All.

I have used a DLL approach explained on How to securely store Connection String details in VBA

This code is running very well on windows 10 64 bit and MS Office 64 bit. But same copy of the files i am not able to use on Wndows 8.1 Pro and MS Office 64 bit.

DLL generated is converted to host machnines environment by using

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\regasm c:\windows\syswow64\OraConnection.dll /tlb /codebase

But still same error i am facing. About environment variables care has been taken. My Connection string is

"Provider=OraOLEDB.Oracle; Data Source = ;  User ID =; Password=";

There is a various number of free (and legal) .NET decompilers available. Don't feel on the save side! — Wernfried Domscheit, Dec 13 '17 at 19:00
Folder `c:\windows\syswow64` is the location for 32-bit assemblies. By default a 64-bit application does not read anything from there. Do you have an Oracle Client (include "Oracle Provider for OLE DB" driver) installed on your Windows 8.1? — Wernfried Domscheit, Dec 13 '17 at 19:09
Are you sure about MS Office 64 bit? That is fairly uncommon. — Wernfried Domscheit, Dec 13 '17 at 19:16
An office is 64 bit for sure. OLEDB Drivers are also there. Will try to convert the assembly by keeping it in system 32 folder. — Shekhar Nalawade, Dec 14 '17 at 04:51
Even this code i am able to run on another system which has Windows 8.1 and Office 2013 64 Bit. Cant resolve whats the difference between both machines. — Shekhar Nalawade, Dec 14 '17 at 05:10
Analyze with [Process Explorer](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer) — Wernfried Domscheit, Dec 14 '17 at 07:27
Whats to be checked in Process Explorer? I have not used it before. All I am able to see the application processes are listed. Where can I oraoledb process started? — Shekhar Nalawade, Dec 14 '17 at 08:46
Checked all processes. No Difference at all observed. Still thanks a lot for such a nice tool for process overview tool. — Shekhar Nalawade, Dec 15 '17 at 04:51
Sorry was a mistake, look for Process Monitor at the same page — Wernfried Domscheit, Dec 15 '17 at 05:29

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 15 '17 at 09:42

In the Succesfull machine i was using Release 12.2.0.1.0 for ODAC 12.2c Release 1 as oracle client.

But saw a latest version of the oracle client as 64-bit ODAC 12.2c Release 1 (12.2.0.1.0) for Windows x64 which was released on 1st June 2017.

Installed the same. And my error was resolved. When i observed system environment variables i saw few things added into it. E:\app\client\Admin\product\12.2.0\client_1;E:\app\client\Admin\product\12.2.0\client_1\bin;C:\Users\Admin\Oracle\;

I dont know actually what they did. But error was resolved.

Can anybody throw highlight on this?

C:\Users\Admin\Oracle is the interesting one. – Shekhar Nalawade Dec 15 '17 at 10:41 — Shekhar Nalawade, Dec 15 '17 at 10:41

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 13 '17 at 11:47

I'm not sure what the DLL buys you beyond simple obfuscation. All you're doing is making it a bit harder to get to but not actually protecting the privacy of it in any meaningful sense. My normal advice for management of connection strings is to simply don't save user/password. Instead, require the users to input the username/password at runtime and ensure that you have Persist Security Info=false in your OLEDB connection. That way, once it's opened, the full connection string is now inaccessible and there's no reference to a password. That's much more secure than sticking it in a variable in a DLL and crossing your fingers nobody knows how to read a memory dump or attach a debugger.

That said, that's not germane to your question, not able to the use the provider. First thing I'd do is to rule out whether the DLL is causing a problem that you didn't expect by removing it and using the provider directly. If it likewise fails, then you know the DLL has nothing to do with it and you need to work out with Oracle's provider documentation to get to the bottom of the issue.

Obfuscation is what I want. This excel utility will be used by others so I don't want to share my username and password for the database. — Shekhar Nalawade, Dec 14 '17 at 05:01
Maybe ask your DBA to create another account where you can share the credentials. — Wernfried Domscheit, Dec 14 '17 at 05:21
That's not an option available. Help to resolve the error if you can. — Shekhar Nalawade, Dec 15 '17 at 07:16

error 3706 provider cannot be found. it may not be properly installed

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