[python-win32] cx_Oracle import failure

[jkreps at rev.state.ne.us]

Hi folks!
I'm a first-time poster to this newsgroup... be gentle!  ;-)

Box:
Dell OptiPlex GX260, 2.4GHz, 500MB RAM
OS:
Win2k with all the latest patches.

ODBC:
Oracle ODBC 8.01.07.00

Software:
Boa_Constructor 0.2.3 with the usual requirements (wxWindows, pxPython,
etc.) running on top of Python 2.3.2

I've developed a Python app (my first)  using mxODBC as the driver
connecting my GUI to our Oracle 8.1.7 backend.
It works beautifully and is very fast.    However, my backend connection is
not classed and mxODBC lacks some cursor object methods which I want to
incorporate into my own cursor class -- nextrow, prevrow, firstrow,
lastrow, etc... (mxODBC's '.next()' and '.scroll()' aren't what I want.)

So, I decided to look into cx_Oracle and see if it offered the methods I
want.
I downloaded "cx_Oracle-3.1-win32-8i-py23.exe"  and its associated tools
and installed them.

"import cx_Oracle" gives the following error:
"The procedure entry point OCISessionGet could not be located in the
Dynamic Linked Library oci.dll"
I reverted back to Python 2.2 and related software but got the same
message.

In checking around the internet a couple of solutions were offered:
1) put the path to "C:\OraHome1\bin" in the environment path var    -  this
didn't work
2) put the path to "C:\OraHome1\bin" in the system path var - this didn't
work.
3) another helper offered:
"The reason you are getting that error is that the version of cx_Oracle
that is current only supports Oracle 8.1.x and above. Oracle has long
since dropped support for Oracle 8.0.x and so I dropped support for it
as well. If you absolutely must continue using 8.0.x with all of its
bugs (8.1.7 and 9.2.0 are much more stable) then I can provide you with
the source for the last version that supported 8.0.x or I can tell you
which source needs to be changed to support 8.0.x. Let me know. Thanks."
but, I am running 8.1.7,  so this isn't a solution.

For grins and giggles I tried the "cx_Oracle-4.0-win32-9i-py23.exe" version
and got the same error msg.

4)  "Andy" offered this advice to someone else having the same problem:
"Well, you've got me beaten. I tried to break my system by downloading
the Windows binary for Python 2.2 and Oracle8i, even though I have the
9i client - and it still worked.

The only combination I haven't tried, and I'm not going to, is the
cx_Oracle binary built against the Oracle9i client with the Oracle8i
client software which I suspect would break in the manner you describe.

As many people are successfully using cx_Oracle and you are the only one
seeing this problem I still suspect the solution to your problem is in
the combination of software you have running on your machine rather than
a bug in cx_Oracle, Python or Oracle."

So, apparently some folks using my hardware/software environment are
getting cx_Oracle to run, but after repeatedly installing and un-installing
various versions of ALL the software from Python on down I am still greeted
with the same response.
Anyone have a solution to this problem?
TIA!
===========
JLKreps