Trust Bill 

 

You know what I’m talking about, because you‘ve done it too! What, blame Bill you ask? Bill, as in Gates ala Microsoft; and blame, well I think you have a good grasp on that, suffice it to say any Blue Screen of Death, or driver incompatibility, heck just anything you don’t like about Windows! The response is always the same – Screaming “{Insert explicit of your choice} Microsoft!” followed by throwing random objects at and/or kicking the computer in question.

 

And I have to admit, 99% of the time it’s a safe bet to blame Mr. Gates. Most of the time it does turn out that if something on a Windows computer goes aria it can be traced to a Microsoft flax-paw.  If you want to drive that percentage of dysfunction and suffering to a virtual 100% failure rate, be sure to always adopt new Microsoft patches, service packs and 1.0 releases.

 

It’s against this backdrop I found myself a couple weeks ago. While consulting at my favorite “Garlic Capital of the World” customer, we were building up a couple of new Windows 2003 R2 servers to host Oracle 10 databases – pretty mundane right? The build was moving forward rather uneventfully; as part of the initial setup I usually hit Windows Update and pull down any critical updates (environments where SUS is available can skip this step.) Then the horror, Windows 2003 Server SP2.

 

Now there are a few of you that just love to install every brand-new “fix” that vendors put out, I have learned better. So not having seen 2003 SP2 and Oracle 10.2 I advised my client we might want to hold up on the new Microsoft Service Pack. But after talking it over, we elected to roll the dice and go for it, SP2 installed smoothly and on we went.

 

Completing the server build with Oracle 10.2.0.3, I built some databases, loaded up the necessary business apps and started testing client connections. Nothing. No connectivity to Oracle. After running through the usual trouble-shooting steps I conclude it can be only one thing – “Fracking Bill!”, I decry, as I angrily uninstall SP2. Reboot, and WTF Oracle was still broken! After another few minutes of digging I discover the problem was actually introduced with the Oracle SP, not Microsoft.

 

Shockingly I found the 1% of the time it actually wasn’t Bill’s fault!?!? So I’m stunned, but I guess it serves me right. And heck, I should look at it this way, if it’s not Bill, at least I can blame Larry. So take comfort Larry, in your efforts to be just like Bill you are now mimicking Microsoft service packs breaking stuff, way to go Oracle.

 

Ah, I’m going to keep blaming Bill, old habits are hard to break!