Date:         Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:49:42 -0400
Reply-To:     Jay Weedon <jweedon@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jay Weedon <jweedon@EARTHLINK.NET>
Organization: NewsGuy - Unlimited Usenet $19.95
Subject:      SAS 9.2 for Windows x64, first impressions
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Just got it running this week. It took some doing - our account rep
had no idea of the administrative details of d/l-ing the 64-bit
package (nor apparently do the folks at Contracts, so they're looking
just a tad clueless at SI right now), and she didn't seem to want to
do the research, so after several rounds of questioning emails I STILL
ended up d/l-ing the 32-bit package by mistake. I called tech support
who had to call the rep to straighten her out on what she was supposed
to provide. D/l of the 4.1GB package took about 3 hours.

Haven't had a chance to run any serious benchmarks comparing it with
the 32-bit code, but I was dismayed to find that neither the libname
interface nor the import wizard will allow reading of Microsoft
(Excel, Access) datasets more recent than about 1997. Apparently MS
has no plans to write 64-bit code for the "Jet" platform on which
they're written, so those features could stay broken for a while yet.
There are possible workarounds: tech support's got me fiddling with
some software contraption I'd never heard of called PC File Server
(which isn't provided with the 9.2 package, either 32- or 64-bit,
since it's considered a Unix utility, so they had to put it up on an
FTP server for me). Don't know how well it works yet.

The other (not unexpected) bummer for me is that 9.2 for Win x64 won't
support the StatXact & LogXact procs for SAS that I've become so
dependent on the last couple of years. The good news is that they do
work with 9.2 for Win 32.

Anyhow, I'm off to Joint Statistical Meetings tomorrow, so all this
testing will have to wait  a couple of weeks till I return.

JW