topic SAS 9.4 won't start on Windows 11 in Administration and Deployment

SAS 9.4 won't start on Windows 11

bnawrocki — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 20:21:12 GMT

I upgraded to Windows 11 a couple months ago, and SAS 9.4 and SAS Enterprise Guide both worked great. A Windows update was pushed to my computer a couple weeks ago. I usually use SAS Enterprise Guide, and that has continued to work OK after the update.

But when I try to start SAS 9.4 now, the splash screen appears, but SAS 9.4 no longer opens or runs. I tried running SAS.exe from the command line, and same thing - splash screen appears, SAS.exe appears in Task Manager, but nothing happens until I kill the SAS task. So, why would SAS Enterprise Guide work, but not SAS 9.4? Any debugging suggestions?

I've opened a ticket with my IT group, but I doubt they can help me. I guess it's either a Win 11 update issue, or perhaps I have another process that is interrupting SAS's normal operation? I noticed we're running TaniumCX, which I haven't noticed before. Might that be a problem?

Re: SAS 9.4 won't start on Windows 11

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 20:29:02 GMT

Open a track with SAS technical support (or have that done by your IT people).

Re: SAS 9.4 won't start on Windows 11

ballardw — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 08:04:52 GMT

Does your EG connect to your local SAS 9.4 install or a server? If it connects to a server then it would be very likely to run without problems as long as the server is running properly.

I suspect that SAS wrote a log somewhere but the location for such at start problems could be somewhere in the C:\users\yourusername\ or the SAS program folders.

At various times I had IT cause problems with SAS by :

1) removing the SAS Java installed files (ODS and graphics quit working )

2) "re-imaging" my Windows registry removing all the SAS installed items or

3) reverting to an earlier version of the registry (SAS 9.4 doesn't run when the registry reflects a 9.3 install )

4) changing my permissions to access files on my hard drive (breaking bits where files that SAS updates files no longer having write permissions)

5) Deleted about 200 program files and documentation

6) restored files from backup such that the more recent backed up files had a date component added to the file name and the older versions had the correct name. I spent months fighting with "I thought I fixed that" because the restore was applied to folders other than the one they had deleted the files from in #5.

Then there was the time they removed a connection in a patch panel 4 floors above and it took them a week to determine why I had no network connections at all...

Good luck.