Oracle on Windows: create 19.21 Gold Image and use it for out-of-place patching

This guide shows a way, how a Gold Image can be created from an Oracle Home on Windows and how that can be used to patch other Oracle Homes. This worked for me, but is not meant to be the only, best or officially recommended Oracle way.

Prepare the image source home

Start with a fresh installed Oracle Home, in this case under D:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_1\.

There is no standard oraenv.sh under Windows, a minimal oraenv.cmd could look like that:

set ORACLE_BASE=C:\app\oracle
set ORACLE_HOME=%ORACLE_BASE%\product\19.0.0\dbhome_1
set PATH=%ORACLE_HOME%\bin;%PATH%
set PATH=%ORACLE_HOME%\perl\bin;%PATH%
set PATH=%ORACLE_HOME%\OPatch\;%PATH%   

Run your oraenv.cmd, unpack the software (you can use tar xfz under Windows for unzip) and run setup.bat, see the Database Installation Guide 19c for Microsoft Windows. 

C:\app>mkdir c:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_1
C:\app>oraenv.cmd
C:\app>cd %ORACLE_HOME%
C:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_2>tar xfz z:\Install\Windows\WINDOWS.X64_193000_db_home.zip
C:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_2>setup.bat 

In this example, we use an existing user oracle instead of a virtual account, which would be the default from the oracle installer. This makes directory handling easier for out-of-place-patching. Also we only need to setup the software only and this is a single instance installation. Under Linux, we would just apply the RU and one-offs from the setup, but the options '-applyRU 'and '-applyOneOffs' are not available under Windows (see the comments on https://mikedietrichde.com/2022/05/17/simple-database-installation-with-applyru-and-applyoneoffs/, search for Windows).

Update opatch by following Doc ID 274526.1 from Oracle Support, in this case using opatch 12.2.0.1.41.

For the Gold Image, we will patch the 19.03 dbhome_1 up to 19.21 plus two one-off patches for the JVM. So download and unpack the patches to a given directory, in this example c:\app\oracle\patches. The patch numbers are 35638318, 35648110 and 35681552, these have to be applied manually by running opatch apply in every patch directory, starting with 35681552 which is the Bundle Patch 19.21.

Now the dbhome_1 is on 19.21 with two additional one-off patches and will serve as source for our Gold Image.

Create the Gold Image

Next, from the patched Oracle Home, we create a Gold Image following the documentation.

setup.exe -createGoldImage -destinationLocation c:\app\oracle\images 

Wait for the installer to finish, then you should have the newly created image in the directory stated by -destinationLocation.

Create new Oracle Home and database

Next we create a new Oracle Home and a Database ORCL/ORCLPDB under dbhome_2. Create the new directory, change the ORACLE_HOME variable in oraenv.cmd to point to dbhome_2 and run it. Then unpack the 19.03 software to that directory the same way as dbhome_1 before.

C:\app>mkdir c:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_2
C:\app>oraenv.cmd
C:\app>cd %ORACLE_HOME%
C:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_2>tar xfz z:\Install\Windows\WINDOWS.X64_193000_db_home.zip
C:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_2>setup.bat

Run setup.exe in dbhome_2 and this time also create a database ORCL with a PDB ORCLPDB.

So now we have a patched dbhome_1 as source for the Gold Image and an unpatched dbhome_2 running the database ORCL with the PDB ORCLPDB.

Out-of-place patching using the Gold Image

For out-of-place patching, we need to create a new Oracle Home, where we unpack the Gold Image. Change the ORACLE_HOME in oraenv.cmd to dbhome_3 and run it.

C:\app>oraenv.cmd
C:\app>mkdir c:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_3
C:\app>cd %ORACLE_HOME%
C:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_3>tar xfz c:\app\oracle\images\db_home_2024-02-21_05-21-14PM.zip
C:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_3>setup

Run setup, choose software only and the oracle user instead of a virtual account. If setup.exe crashes with a Java EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION, follow MOS note 2772729.1.

On Unix/Linux systems, we would already be done, but on Windows we have services which need to be migrated to the new Oracle Home.

In the registry, we see that the services are linked to a given Oracle Home, so these need to be migrated.

set OLDORA_HOME=%ORACLE_BASE%\product\19.0.0\dbhome_2

rem --- stop all Oracle services first ---
net stop OracleOraDB19Home2MTSRecoveryService
net stop OracleOraDB19Home2TNSListener
net stop OracleServiceORCL
net stop OracleVssWriterORCL

Stop all services from dbhome_2. For easier scripting, we point OLDORA_HOME to the Oracle home running the old version.

rem --- Copy spfile and pwdfile to new ORACLE_HOME
copy %OLDORA_HOME%\database\SPFILEORCL.ORA %ORACLE_HOME%\database
copy %OLDORA_HOME%\database\PWDorcl.ora    %ORACLE_HOME%\database

Copy the spfile and pwdfile to dbhome_3

rem -- Delete old services
%OLDORA_HOME%\bin\oramtsctl -delete
sc delete OracleOraDB19Home2TNSListener

Delete the MTS and Listener services from the old home.

rem --- Point services to new ORACLE_HOME
sc config OracleServiceORCL         binPath="c:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_3\bin\ORACLE.EXE ORCL"
sc config OracleJobSchedulerORCL    binPath="c:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_3\bin\extjob.exe ORCL"
sc config OracleVssWriterORCL       binPath="c:\app\oracle\product\19.0.0\dbhome_3\bin\OraVSSW.exe ORCL"

Migrate the OracleService, JobScheduler and VssWriter from the old to the new home.

rem --- create new services
%ORACLE_HOME%\bin\oramtsctl -new
%ORACLE_HOME%\bin\lsnrctl start
sc config "OracleOraDB19Home3TNSListener" start= auto

The formerly deleted services from the old home need to be recreated for the new home. Starting the Listener automatically creates a new Service for the new home. That one should be configured to start automatically.

rem --- start new services
oradim -EDIT -SID ORCL -STARTMODE auto -SRVCSTART system
net start OracleServiceORCL

Set the Oracle service to be started automatically and to start the database on service start. Then start the OracleService.

rem --- start the database and run datapatch
rem --- not needed with service auto start --- @echo startup | sqlplus / as sysdba
@echo alter pluggable database all open | sqlplus / as sysdba
@echo show pdbs | sqlplus / as sysdba
%ORACLE_HOME%\OPatch\datapatch

Before running the datapatch, make sure that all pds are open. When the open state has been saved by using ALTER PLUGGABLE DATABASE ... SAVE STATE, that step can be skipped. Here we open all PDB's before running the datapatch 

The database software and data dictionary should now be on the new version.

rem --- apply optimizer fixes for every PDB
@echo @?/rdbms/admin/dbmsoptim.sql | sqlplus / as sysdba
@echo @?/rdbms/admin/prvtoptim.plb | sqlplus / as sysdba
@echo execute dbms_optim_bundle.enable_optim_fixes('ON','BOTH', 'YES'); | sqlplus / as sysdba

Last step is enabling the optimizer fixes for the new version. The complete scripting can be found on GitLab.