Oracle Data Access Components and Visual Studio connection problems

I've created an empty console application in Visual Studio 2010 and I'm attempting to add an Oracle (10g XE ) Data Connection via the Server Explorer. I'm using Oracle ODP .NET as the connector and I get the following error:

ORA-12560: TNS: Protocol Adapter Error

I can access Or开发者_开发问答acle without issue via the web interface or a console, but continually get this generic connection error in VS. I'm using the default installation of Oracle XE and running it locally.

Any suggestion on how to get this set up correctly ? Every tutorial I find works on the understanding that this connection succeeds. As such I'm struggling to find where to begin to troubleshoot. I'm comfortable with VS2010, but new to the way Oracle does things with their DB.

EDIT 1 While troubleshooting I've found this only happens with the Oracle Data Provider for .NET. Using the .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle I am able to successfully connect.

EDIT 2 I cleaned up everything and installed 11g XE and the ODAC tools again and continue to get the same message. I realize the error is somewhat generic, I'd be happy to post more information if anyone thinks it helpful. The database is run locally, I can't imagine what kind of 'configuration' an express database would even need...

EDIT 3 The ODAC tools appear to install a 'production' version of Oracle 11 instead of the BETA version that I installed first. Almost appears as if the tool is installing another database ? I also appear to have two ORACLE_BASE locations and two TNSNAMES in what appear to be very similar folder hierarchies. Perhaps a more straightforward tutorial is the answer, Oracle's isn't very descriptive.

Oracle 10g XE seemed to be the problem. A full install of 11g (Full, not Express) took care of the problem entirely.

From here:

Possible fixes for the TNS-12560 include:

1. Get the latest patches for the SQL*Net client software.

2. Check your $ORACLE_HOME and $Path variables.

3. Check File permissions on the PC client.

4. Ensure that TNS_ADMIN is set correctly.

5. Check for firewall issues.

6. Check that the Windows database service is started. Verify teh ORACLE_SID parameter is set correctly in the registry.

Wow. I finally got this syntax to work. I'm a Sql Server guy. I used Oracle back in the da day. But I'm trying to do some Entity Framework and I said "You're not going to bed until you get Visual Studio 2012 and a edmx file to talk to Oracle.

Geeze.

Here is what I came up with:

Data Source: Oracle Database (Oracle ODP.NET)

Data Source Name: localhost:1521/orcl

User Name: SYSTEM

change the default data source name to localhost.