Oracle hasn’t yet released versions of its client software for Windows Server 2008 R2. If you need to create an Oracle linked server, that’s a problem. You’ll see this installation block when attempting to install the Oracle client software for Windows Server 2008:
It’s very simple to fix. Check the first checkbox to make the installer ignore the version check.
Click Next and ignore the warning you’ll see.
The installation should complete successfully.
Windows does offer various strategies for mitigating application compatibility problems. There is one called a version lie shim which sometimes is successful in resolving such installation blocks. It requires right-clicking the installer executable and making the OS to be an earlier version number. This approach was not successful in installing the Oracle client software.
When you’re done installing the Oracle client software, if you’re going to create a linked server, be sure to make the Oracle provider inprocess.
