Upgrading from 8.1.6 to 9.2

You are correct that you will have to perform a two step upgrade. If I had to perform this upgrade scenario, then I'd use the manual upgrade as well, which as you've stated means running the to upgrade scripts. Unfortunately, you have to run both of these scripts to completion otherwise you could run into complications. A knowledgable person could hack these two scripts to speed up the upgrade time, but if you ran into problems, you would be on your own. Oracle Support would be relucant to help you since you deviated from the approved upgrade path.

I would suggest running one upgrade script in one environment and then switching to the newest 9i environment and running the final upgrade script. If you do this back to back, you can minimize your downtime. And as always, take a backup before and after your upgrade, just in case.

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