The Microsoft Web Platform Installer is unable to install Acquia Drupal on Vista Home Basic due to an error in the feed. I was able to verify that it works just fine on Vista Home Basic by adding it in a custom feed. According to theinstallation page, Acquia Drupal also supports Windows XP, but the same error in the feed prevents it from being installed there.
The error is either that the application metadata osList value for the installer isSupportedAppPlatformsExcludeXP or that the osTypes value for NoXPSupport lists individual types instead of simply Client and is missingHomeBasic: https://www.microsoft.com/web/webpi/4.5/webapplicationlist.xml