When Oracle runs on Windows, Oracle implements the various processes as
threads running under one Oracle
service.
You can look at the list of services, and that will tell you how many Oracle instances you have running. To do this, use the Start menu, and go to
Start->Settings->Control Panel.
When the Control Panel opens, double-click on the Services icon. You should see a list of services similiar to that in the example below.
The Oracle processes, since they start with “
o,” are usually far enough down in the list that you will need to scroll down in order to see them.
The convention used for naming Oracle services is
OracleServiceservice_name, where
service_name represents the instance name. In the example just shown, you can see a service named
OracleServiceORCL.
That tells you that you have an instance named
ORCL running on the server.
With the release of Oracle, Oracle provides a utility known as the Oracle Administration Assistant for Windows.
You can use this utility to see a detailed listing of the threads running within each service. To do this, first start the assistant. You will find it under
Start->Programs->Oracle - OraHome1->Database Administration
->Oracle Administration Assistant for Windows NT.
After it starts, select the instance that you are interested in from the list, and you will then see a screen like this:
To run the Oracle Administration Assistant for Windows NT, you must have Internet Explorer installed on your PC, and must have the Microsoft Management Console installed as well.