If you're doing an outer join, the problem is that Oracle doesn't support the SQL 99 syntax until 9i and SQL Server doesn't support the Oracle join operator (+).
What API are you using to execute the query? The ODBC API defines an escape sequence for outer joins that the individual ODBC drivers will convert to the appropriate native join syntax.
Justin
Distributed Database Consulting, Inc.
http://www.ddbcinc.com/askDDBC