Having trouble installing Oracle Client 10g onto Windows Server 2008 R2 ?. Getting those errors about unsupported platform ?.

There are 2 things you need to do:

1. Modify the Oraparam.ini file by adding the following items in bold to it:

[Certified Versions] 
# You can customise error message shown for failure, provide value for 
CERTIFIED_VERSION_FAILURE_MESSAGE 

Windows = 5.0,5.1,5.2,6.0,6.1 
[Windows-6.1-required] 
# Minimum display colours for OUI to run 
MIN_DISPLAY_COLORS = 256 
# Minimum CPU speed required for OUI 
# CPU = 300 
[Windows-6.1-optional]

2. Modify the ....client\stage\prereq\client\refhost.xml file with notepad:

You must see something like this:

<CERTIFIED_SYSTEMS>
<OPERATING_SYSTEM>
<VERSION VALUE=”5.0″/>
<SERVICE_PACK VALUE=”1″/>
</OPERATING_SYSTEM>
<OPERATING_SYSTEM>
<VERSION VALUE=”5.1″/>
<SERVICE_PACK VALUE=”1″/>
</OPERATING_SYSTEM>
<OPERATING_SYSTEM>
<VERSION VALUE=”5.2″/>
</OPERATING_SYSTEM>
<!–Microsoft Windows Vista–>
<OPERATING_SYSTEM>
<VERSION VALUE=”6.0″/>
</OPERATING_SYSTEM>
</OPERATING_SYSTEM>
</CERTIFIED_SYSTEMS>

Now add the following:

<!–Microsoft Windows 2008–>
<OPERATING_SYSTEM>
<VERSION VALUE=”6.1"/>
</OPERATING_SYSTEM>

Note: The above addition must be before the </CERTIFIED_SYSTEMS> entry. 

Together with your response file (.rsp) this Oracle 10g Client 10.2.0.4 will install silently onto Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64).

Disclaimer: You must test that this client functions as expected with your application and backend database.