DevOps, CI/CD and Automation

I'm a newbie, forced into being a database query-writer by necessity, so please bear with my horrible explanations. I have google-searched this to the end of google, and cannot find an answer for my particular problem, though I've been able to solve many issues to get here -- so, I am trying.

I have a SQL Server database set up on a SQL 2005 server, and I need to link Oracle (11g) data to it.

I've successfully installed the necessary Oracle software onto that Windows 2003 server housing my SQL 2005 database. I set up my linked server, and can query when I remote desktop into the Win2003 server and run SSMS from there.

HOWEVER, I have SSMS 2008 installed on MY PC. This PC can also (independent of SQL) access the same Oracle database - I have client software set up on it. But when I try to access the Linked Server, remotely, from my PC, using SSMS 2008, I get errors:

OLE DB provider "OraOLEDB.Oracle" for linked server "eplive" returned message "ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified".
Msg 7303, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Cannot initialize the data source object of OLE DB provider "OraOLEDB.Oracle" for linked server "eplive".

I can tnsping the database just fine from my PC.

I can, as a workaround, continue to Remote Desktop to the 2005 server and use SSMS there -- it's just a PITA. And I hate when things that seem like they should work, don't work.

Any things I can try, that maybe I haven't, already?

Thank you!
Em