Windows x64: 32bit Odbc vs 64bit Odbc

I run into a very big trouble on these days.

  • My big company delivered to me a Windows7 64bit system (first error)
  • I asked for Office 64 bit and Visio2007 32 bit
  • I tried to connect to Oracle (second error) to reverse engenieer a DB with Visio2007

I got a “driver architecture” error under Visio2007. Launching
%WINDIR%\System32\odbcad32.exe

(the 32bit guy of the odbc drivers side)
I was able to get the same error… and this was helpful:

It’s important to understand which kind of DSN you have. On an x64 system, you can create an ODBC connection(DSN) on the 32-bit side of the system or on the 64-bit side of the system.

32-bit applications will only see ODBC connections created in the 32-bit side, and 64-bits applications will only see ODBC connections from the 64-bit side. Each kind of application has is own registry.To setup DSN for 32-bit application you must use:

%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe

and for 64-bit application you must use:

%WINDIR%\System32\odbcad32.exe

via Windows x64: 32bit Odbc vs 64bit Odbc « a developer’s breadcrumb.

This  Microsoft KB article explains it.

So I re-installed the 32bit version of the Oracle11g drivers, after ensuirng it was possible.

Remember: on 64bit system, you will probably need a double odbc driver declaration to mix 32 and 64 applications.