When I first started this site, the first article I wrote about was installing Oracle Client drivers on to Windows 2003. Nearly four years on, I got my hands on the latest version of Oracle with the latest version of Windows….
Oracle 11G R2 Client relies on the same Java based installation mechanism as its predecessors and I was trying to create a silent install for Windows 2008 R2 64-bit. So on launching the application manually the system would crash out complaining about pre-requisites. Specifically the memory; path and Architecture tests failed. Manually the installer gives you the option to ignore but that failed too and didn’t give much clue.
Going to google didn’t really help much either, lots of people complaining about similar issues but no real solutions. Was it Java being the wrong version, did it need the new JDK’s/JRE’s or was it some other software conflict…?
Turns out it was simple. RTFM.
One of the first lines in the readme/installation instructions noted that for Vista OSes and up (so that would include 7, 2008 and 2008 R2), the security improvement of removing the Admin C$ share stops the installer from working.
Do a simple:
net share c$=c:\ /grant:administrator,full
on the command line prior to the setup and then it’ll run manually. Fortunately then when you get through the installer, there is a button to save off the response file which you can call in a batch file like this:
setup.exe -silent -nowelcome -responsefile <filename>