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Installing APEX 2.2 on XE

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As you might have noticed APEX 2.2 is available for download. On the download site nowhere is stated that is doesn’t work for on XE, but installing on XE fails directly. How to solve this?

This is due to the following lines in the upgrade procedure in the file apexins.sql:
declare
t_edition varchar2(30);
edition_is_xe exception;
begin
--select edition into t_edition from v$instance;
execute immediate 'select edition from v$instance' into t_edition;
if nvl(t_edition,'x') = 'XE'
then
dbms_output.put_line('---------------------------------');
dbms_output.put_line('- Ap Ex cant be installed in Express Edition.-');
dbms_output.put_line('-------------------------------------');
raise edition_is_xe;
end if;
exception
when edition_is_xe then raise;
when others then null; -- no edition column, not xe
end;
/
Once the lines are REM’med out the upgrade process runs fine. After finishing the other steps from the upgrade manual I can login, change and run previously defined applications. The main difference with the “lightweight” APEX installed with XE is that there are workspaces defined for every Apex-developer (with the same name).

At this point you are only missing access to the workspace INTERNAL using the ADMIN account. This is easily solved by creating a new admin account by logging in in SQLPLUS as FLOWS_020200 user (unlock the account first) and issue:
begin
wwv_flow_api.set_security_group_id(p_security_group_id=>10);
wwv_flow_fnd_user_api.create_fnd_user(
p_user_name => 'admin2',
p_email_address => 'myemail@mydomain.com',
p_web_password => 'admin2') ;
end;
/
commit;
Now we can administer APEX on XE with ADMIN2 as were it a “normal” APEX installation!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hello Roel !
I cannot find out where to copy the "images"-directory from the installation-zip into the XE-tree as told in the post installation tasks. I used /i/ as @apexins-parameter as recommended but now I am standing in the dark. The diretories named in the installation docu does not exist in the XE-version. Do you have a hint ? Thanks !

Andree
12:31 pm
Roel said…
Andree,

/i/ is a virtual directory. When using XE (on Windows XP) you can create a new Network Location using the Wizard (create networking location). There you can enter http://127.0.0.1:8080/i/ as the location (use system/systempassword when prompting for user/password). Now you have a virtual directory (let's call it 'Z')in your Explorer, and you can copy the images to z:\img\.
See http://daust.blogspot.com/2006/03/where-are-images-of-application.html for more info about this...
2:39 pm
ApexDev said…
Hello,
Just googling APEX and XE and this blog came up near top. Do you know of any issues installing APEX 2.2 (not an Upgrade) with Oracle XE?

Any other websites purely that talk about supportability and other issues with Oracle XE and APEX?

Am aware of OTN but wondering if there were any site specific to this setup?

Regards,
ApexDev
11:16 pm
Roel said…
ApexDev,
Before installing APEX on XE you first need to de-install XE (because Apex comes pre-installed on XE). I've never done this (there was no need), so I can't help you out there. Other sites of interest about Apex (on XE or other flavour):
http://spendolini.blogspot.com/
http://dgielis.blogspot.com/
http://inside-apex.blogspot.com/
http://iadvise.blogspot.com/
Ofcourse this is absolutely not complete list, but something to start with...

Gr
Roel
1:56 pm
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