Become Another Oracle User

This technique is useful to log in as another user to troubleshoot a problem they may be having. Oracle DBA privileges are needed.

Open two windows.

In the first window:

select password from dba_users where username='THEUSER'
alter user THEUSER identified by pass

In the second window:

sqlplus THEUSER/pass

In the first window:

alter user THEUSER identified by values 'password values from first query'

In the second window you will be logged on as the user. If the password can be set and reset quickly, this can be used for troubleshooting on a live production system.

Multi-Platform File Salvage

The PhotoRec program is multiplatform and can recover dozens of file types on corrupted or "formatted" file systems.

Offline MSWindows Patching

Installing a fresh operating system and connecting it to the Internet to install the latest patches can be risky.

The program available here will download needed patches so they can be put to an ISO CD or DVD. The program even has a simple GUI to choose the download options.