After I prepared my new Windows 7 Enterprise x64 workstation with a bunch of 64-bit Oracle software, I also needed connectivity to Oracle from various 32-bit software. So, I downloaded and installed the latest and greatest 32-bit Oracle11g instant client (11.2.0.2.0) from OTN with all the goodies, including ODBC driver that I need for troubleshooting support issues of our MS Access 2003/2007/2010 users.

I opened 32-bit ODBC administrator (Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe) and when I tried to add System DSN with instanclient 11.2 driver I was stopped with the error:

The setup routines for the Oracle in instantclient_11_2 ODBC driver could not be loaded due to system error code 14001.

as shown below :

followed by instruction to check the Event log:

and so I did…

The “Microsoft.VC80.MFC” part of the error message in Event Log was saying that some C++ redistributable libraries were missing. With some trial and miss I found out that I need to install 32-bit Microsoft C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) on my Windows 7 x64.

I downloaded “Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)” from Microsoft Download Center:

Notice the match of version numbers of libraries as shown on the last two pictures (8.0.50727.762)!

After I installed 32-bit C++ 2005 libraries on my Windows7 x64 workstation I was able to use 32-bit ODBC driver with my Instant client 11g installation.