Migrating sas from XP(32) to Win7(64)

A client that is preparing to roll out windows 7 64 bit to all its employees asked me to ensure that the sas functionality is not lost. Currently they use V9.2 on xp in the good old fashioned way – disparate pc installations of base/stat/graph/ets ….

Repeating the same installation script used for xp 32 bit I have experienced only one difference – the access to office files. This applies to the versions of office that use the four letter extension (e.g. xslx instead of xls). The fix is to add to the installation script the ‘pc files server’ and modify relevant proc import and libname statements.

The statement in Win XP (32)

proc import file="<filename>.xlsx" out=<dataset> dbms=excel; run;

should be modified in Win7 64 to specify a different dbms

proc import file="<filename>.xlsx" out=<dataset> dbms= EXCELCS; run;

Pointing at an MS Access collection in Win XP(32)

Libname mylib "<filename>.accdb";

should be modified in Win7 64 to specify the pc files engin

Libname mylib pcfiles path=""<filename>.accdb";

Exploring the issues in the installation I had interesting chats with the IT people responsible for purchasing sas and packaging it for enterprise wide installation. I could fill pages and pages discussing their thoughts, pains and complaints. It boils down to poor documentation (EXPALANTION) of the installation decisions that need to be made and the PRICE. I had to scrape the person from the floor after he got the quote from sas for a server (no frilly stuff like BI or EG).