1608: unable to create InstallDriver instance, return code -2147221164

The fix for this on my PC was:

• Identify your TEMP folder – choose start -> run -> type “cmd”, then type “set temp” in the command window.
• Navigate to this folder in windows. It may well be a hidden folder , so  select tools  -> folder options -> view -> show hidden files and folders.
• Attempt to install OracleXE again – but this time leave the “1608: unable to create InstallDriver instance, return code -2147221164” error dialog box visible, do not close it by clicking ok. Closing the dialog box will delete the TEMP files which we need for the next step.
• A new folder will have been created under the TEMP folder (press F5 to refresh if necessary). Copy this new folder and all its files to a new location.
• Now it is safe to close the “1608: unable to create InstallDriver instance, return code -2147221164” error dialog box by clicking ok.
• Locate file ISScript11.Msi in the newly copied folder.
• Right click on file ISScript11.Msi and select “Uninstall”
• Right click on file ISScript11.Msi and select “Install”
• Now attempt to install OracleXE again – for me it now ran through to completion.

An easy way round this is to download and run “DSL (Damn Small Linux) embedded”. It’s like having a linux desktop, but runs as a program inside Microsoft Windows. It’s free, and works as well or better than the commercial emulators for me – except on one old laptop without much memory where mouse control back inside Windows became erratic.

“DSL embedded” can be downloaded from here (look for dsl-[VERSION]-embedded.zip). Unzip that and run “dsl-base.bat” to start it up under Microsoft Windows. While using it, “Ctrl+Alt” switches back to Microsoft Windows applications. To close it, right click its desktop and select “power down”.

More details at damnsmalllinux.org

Running the installer in silent mode should have been a way around the need for X displays, but in fact it still fails (v8 through 9iR2) with an error like:

Exception java.lang.NullPointerException occurred..

So, even though you’re not going to use the installer GUI, oracle (for those versions) makes you have X windows all set up anyway. Quite annoying.

But – it’s fixed in 10g!

So oracle versions up to 7, and then from 10gR1 and above, don’t need X windows to install. Versions 8 up to 9iR2 do.

10gR2 Installation Guide says:

A.1.1 Reasons for Using Silent Mode or Noninteractive Mode
Use silent mode if you want to:

• Complete an unattended installation, which you might schedule using operating system utilities such as at
• Complete several similar installations on multiple systems without user interaction
• Install the software on a system that does not have X Window System software installed on it

And 10gR1 Installation Guide for Unix Systems:

Automated Installation Methods Using Response Files
By creating a response file and specifying this file when you start the Installer, you can automate some or all of the Oracle Database installation. These automated installation methods are useful if you need to perform multiple installations on similarly configured systems or if the system where you want to install the software does not have X Window system software installed.

To run an install in silent mode, copy a template response file from Disk1/response/*.rsp on the installation media, and edit it to include the install choices you want. Then run the installer with options:

./runInstaller -silent -responseFile filename.rsp

Actually there’s a little more to it than that, but see the installation guide for the full details.

And its not something you necessarily want to do just for the install – because future patchsets and even some one off bugfixes will need to use the old compilers also.

Also note that on Red Hat, you don’t get a choice with oracle word size – if you have built a 64 bit OS kernel, then you have to use 64 bit oracle, and (obviously) vice versa. That’s different to SPARC Solaris, where you can happily run 32 bit oracle on a 64 bit kernel (if for some strange reason you ever wanted to). However it is possible to run a 32 bit kernel OS on 64 bit hardware. “uname -a” tells you whether the OS kernel is 32 bit or 64 bit – if it reports “i386″, its 32 bit; “i386-64″ means its 64 bit.

On RH4, for both 64-bit and 32-bit:
1) Revert back to an old c compiler (as the root userid):

mv /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/gcc.orig
mv /usr/bin/g++ /usr/bin/g++.orig
ln -s /usr/bin/x86_64-redhat-linux-gcc32 /usr/bin/gcc
ln -s /usr/bin/x86_64-redhat-linux-g++32 /usr/bin/g++

2) Set environment variable (as the oracle userid before running installer):

export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.19

On RH3 64-bit:
1) apply patch 3423540 before running the installer
2) Set environment variable (as the oracle userid before running installer):

export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.19

On RH3 32-bit:
1) Revert back to an old c compiler (as the root userid):

mv /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/gcc323
mv /usr/bin/g++ /usr/bin/g++323
ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc296 /usr/bin/gcc
ln -sf /usr/bin/g++296 /usr/bin/g++

2) apply patch 3006854 before running the installer
3) Set environment variable (as the oracle userid before running installer):

export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.19

(Caveat emptor: I’ve only done installs of RH4 64-bit and RH3 32-bit, so the information for the others is from metalink only.)

References:
RH3 32-bit
RH3 64-bit
RH4 32-bit
RH4 64-bit

A system startup/shutdown shell script I just used that copes with listener passwords is below.

The location of the listener.ora file was /etc in my case, but that can be different in other servers. The script assumes oracle environment variables are all set correctly at login (the “su -”). This is 9i specific – as explained on Laurent Schneider’s blog post, things are different/better with 10g. Also is only designed to work with a single listener with the default name, LISTENER).

For this script to actually run at system startup/shutdown time, it needs to be linked into the /etc/rc*.d directories, at least /etc/rc3.d (the default startup/shutdown level) although I put it in the others also. That is, as root user:

vi /etc/init.d/oracle
[pasted in below shell script]
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/oracle
cd /etc/rc1.d
ln -s ../init.d/oracle K99oracle
ln -s ../init.d/oracle S99oracle
cd /etc/rc2.d
ln -s ../init.d/oracle K99oracle
ln -s ../init.d/oracle S99oracle
cd /etc/rc3.d
ln -s ../init.d/oracle K99oracle
ln -s ../init.d/oracle S99oracle
cd /etc/rc4.d
ln -s ../init.d/oracle K99oracle
ln -s ../init.d/oracle S99oracle
cd /etc/rc5.d
ln -s ../init.d/oracle K99oracle
ln -s ../init.d/oracle S99oracle
cd /etc/rc6.d
ln -s ../init.d/oracle K99oracle
ln -s ../init.d/oracle S99oracle

The script Itself:

#!/bin/sh
#
#Start/Stop script for oracle
#

case "$1" in

'start')
su - oracle <<END_SU

#start databases
dbstart

#start oracle listener
lsnrctl start

END_SU
;;

'stop')

#stop oracle 9i listener with password control
ENCRYPTED_PASSWORD=`grep -i password /etc/listener.ora | awk -F= '{print $2}' -`

su - oracle <<END_SU

lsnrctl <<END_LISTENER
set password $ENCRYPTED_PASSWORD
stop
quit
END_LISTENER

#cleanly shutdown immediate databases
dbshut

END_SU
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 { start | stop }"
;;
esac
exit 0