Managed ODP.NET driver does not show up in Data Source dialog
Having installed managed ODP.NET on my computer, the ODP.NET Managed Driver does not appear inside the Choose Data Source dialog in Visual Studio 2013 Professional.
This is how it should look like:
This is how it actually looks on my machine:
I've followed the steps described in the "An Easy Drive to .NET" article on the Oracle website.
I've also installed the Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio. Still no managed driver to select.
My question:
Is there anything I forgot to do in order to make the data provider appear?
Answer
The generic answer to this question is "(Re)install 'Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio' (ODT)". Simply getting ODP.NET from Nuget or from other sources is not enough to take advantage of Visual Studio integration. You must install ODT also.
Download "ODTwithODAC": http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/dotnet/utilsoft-086879.html
Update 4/2018: If you are using Visual Studio 2017 Community edition, please upgrade to version 12.2.0.1.1 or later. That is the first version that works with VS 2017 CE: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/dotnet/downloads/odacmsidownloadvs2017-3806459.html
As you noticed, sometimes installations get munged. So if you do not see the driver in the dialogs or are getting generic (non-oracle ORA-) errors when you try to use features then you should reinstall ODT.