TOAD for Oracle and Windows 7: Can't initialize OCI. Error -1
I have a problem with TOAD for Oracle 9.1 running on Windows 7 32-bit, described as follows:
I have Oracle OraClient10g 10.0.2 installed on my PC, and I need to use Toad 9.1. When I try to log into a server, I specify the database via TNS, I type the user name and password, but I get a message with the following error:
Can't initialize OCI. Error -1
Googling around I got several options which include: check that the ORACLE_HOME environment variable is set right, run TOAD as administrator, check that the user name and password are correct, install Oracle and TOAD for 32-bit system... I have checked all those options but I am still getting the error.
There is, however, a detail I should mention: In my start menu, there are two Oracle Homes (Home1 and Home2). Home 2 points to an empty folder because I reinstalled Oracle during my attempts to solve the problem, and the short cut is still in my start menu. I don't think this is important, though, because ORACLE_HOME is pointing to the right home.
I really need help with this. I need to solve this error and log in using TOAD.
Answer
For me, This problem was caused by me setting ORACLE_HOME windows environment variable (permanently). I set this whilst trying to get "emctl" to work.
Once removed, TOAD worked fine.