Just by way of a little test, I upgraded ToH’s PC to Windows 8 yesterday (from Windows 7), without actually getting approval beforehand.

You might have thought a change like that would have been noticed. But 36 hours later, and still not a word to indicate that “something’s different”! That’s 36 hours with things like Photoshop and Microsoft Money being used pretty intensively. Apparently, a change of O/S makes not one noticeable difference to that particular user experience!

This is as near as I can get to the “An O/S your mother could operate” test -and Windows 8 would appear to pass with flying colours. I really do wonder what all those screaming, ‘What an abomination! The end of Microsoft! A Disaster!!’ have actually been using all this time. As someone who took about 2 years to vaguely feel OK about Windows 7, I’m experiencing precisely nothing in Windows 8 except “faster, snappier, efficient”. This is certainly no Vista…

Various commentators have also moaned about different aspects of Windows Server 2012 and/or Office 2013, but I’m using both very happily. Server 2012 feels leaner than before and runs Oracle 11.2.0.3 perfectly well (though I did have to manually install the .Net 3.5 framework first).

There is an issue with using Internet Explorer 10 to access Enterprise Manager, though. You’ll get the usual warnings about invalid security certificates, but you’ve previously been offered a chance to ‘continue to this site’, import the certificate and thus work around the issue. In Internet Explorer 10, however, there is no link to let you continue to the site, so there’s no way to import the self-certified certificate. My workaround was, therefore, to open a command prompt (Win+R, then type cmd and press Enter), and issue the following four commands:

set ORACLE_SID=orcl
set ORACLE_UNQNAME=orcl
set ORACLE_HOSTNAME=localhost
emctl unsecure dbconsole

It’s important to use “localhost” for the ORACLE_HOSTNAME value, rather than the “proper” name for your server, whatever it might be. Otherwise, feel free to substitute in the correct name for your instance if it isn’t actually “orcl”. The effect of the last command is to allow you to connect to Enterprise Manager by a plain http URL instead of an https one. For example, I can now connect to http://localhost:1158/em -and by not using secure http, you completely negate the need for security certificate in the first place, so there are no dramas getting it to work.

No doubt when Oracle 12c finally appears (my bet is on December 12th: 12c on 12/12/12 has a certain symmetry about it), IE10 will work perfectly… but until then, that’s the best I can offer. Of course, it’s not ideal from a security point of view, but that’s the state of the workaround at present.

Oh, and don’t forget to add 1158 as a new rule to the server’s firewall if you mean to connect to Enterprise Manager remotely. (Win key -> type “firewall” -> launch Firewall with Advanced Security -> right-click Inbound Rules-> New Rule -> Port -> Next -> 1158 -> Next -> Allow the connection -> Next -> Next -> type ‘Enterprise Manager rule’ as a name -> Finish).