Long ago I gave up trying to get both the 64 and 32 bit Oracle clients working on Vista x64.  I have for now adopted the approach that if it talks to Oracle – it needs to be 32 bit.  Even my development projects are set to x86 only to ensure only the 32 bit Oracle client is loaded on my development machine. 

I needed to install AutoCAD Map 3D 2011  to debug some ObjectARX code I’ve been working on so I downloaded the 32 bit installer and fired it up only to be informed that my platform was unsupported and I would need to install the 64 bit version.  grrrr.

Google had very little to say on the topic.  More junk about hacking MSI files with Orca.  I took a look at setup.ini and there were far too many references to x64 – I don’t have time for this…Finally I came across the Longbow Software Converter.  The product claims to modify your setups to allow the 32 bit installers to work on x64 operating systems, 40$.  I couldn’t find any reviews or testimonials so I figured I’d give it a shot…

So here is your first testimonial Longbow Software =)

This actually worked great.  Bought the convert, installed it to a virtual machine.   The interface is dead simple – paste or browse to the location of the AutoCAD installation files and press Convert.  Keep in mind if you’re running from a DVD you’ll need to copy the contents of the DVD to your PC or a network share so the files can be edited.  I pointed the converter to an install on a network share.  It chugged away for about a minute (keeping in mind this was on an underpowered VM).  Within a matter of minutes I had AutoCAD Map 3D 2011 installing on my Vista x64 box with no problems.  Ran AutoCAD and it seems to fire up no problem. 

Bear in mind – for AutoCAD to work with anything Oracle – you need to have the 32 bit Oracle client running on your machine.

40$ well spent IMO.