Apply patch on server w/o git

I am trying to generate a diff patch on my local dev box. I want to upload this patch to a server (running Windows Server 2008) and apply it to my staging code. The catch is: I cannot install git on the server to accept the patch. Therefore, I would like to use a generic patching tool (such as patch from the GnuWin32 tools). I tried generating a unified diff with the following command:

git diff -U > diff.patch

and then tried to apply it using:

patch -u -i ..\other_dir\diff.patch

and I got the error:

"patch unexpectedly ends in middle of line" ... "Only garbage was found in the patch input"

It might be a problem with how I'm using patch, and if so, forgive me. If not, then how can I generate a generic diff format from git so I can do what I want?

Thanks all! Joe Fiorini