How to know if your Oracle Client install is 32 Bit or 64 Bit

Sometimes you just need to know if your Oracle Client install is 32 bit or 64 bit. But how do you figure that out? Here are two methods you can try.

The first method

Go to the %ORACLE_HOME%inventoryContentsXML folder and open the comps.xml file.
Look for <DEP_LIST> on the ~second screen.

If you see this: PLAT=”NT_AMD64” then your Oracle Home is 64 bit
If you see this: PLAT=”NT_X86” then your Oracle Home is 32 bit.

It is possible to have both the 32-bit and the 64-bit Oracle Homes installed.

The second method

This method is a bit faster. Windows has a different lib directory for 32-bit and 64-bit software. If you look under the ORACLE_HOME folder if you see a “lib” AND a “lib32” folder you have a 64 bit Oracle Client. If you see just the “lib” folder you’ve got a 32 bit Oracle Client.