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Quentin
Super User

Hi,

Asking for help in understanding implications of changing JRE versions.  Running PC SAS 9.3 on XP, and in near future on Win 7 (likely 32bit SAS).

A few months ago, one night a corporate push to my PC removed jre_1.6.0_24 and installed jre_1.6.0_33.  So when I started PC SAS, I got an error message about JRE.  Found this helpful support page:

http://support.sas.com/resources/thirdpartysupport/v93/jres.html

I updated SAS config to point to _33, and things worked again.

Now just heard a rumor that come February, the next big push may remove JRE 1.6.x completely, forcing us to run only JRE 1.7.  And from what I have seen, SAS wants 1.6.

Update: I guess the decision to uninstall 1.6 in Feb is tied to Oracle's end of public support roadmap, which says no more updates/bug fixes to 1.6 after February:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html

So what are my options? Do I push back to IT and tell them that the latest and greatest version of JRE 1.6.x should be safe enough to let me keep using?  Or do I hope that SAS will be happy with JRE 1.7?  Or....

Thanks,

--Q.

BASUG is hosting free webinars Next up: Jane Eslinger presenting PROC REPORT and the ODS EXCEL destination on Mar 27 at noon ET. Register now at the Boston Area SAS Users Group event page: https://www.basug.org/events.
5 REPLIES 5
SASKiwi
PROC Star

We've been running with desktop 64-bit SAS 9.3, EG, Management Console etc. and JRE 1.7 since last November without any problems so far. Like you our JRE 1.6 got deleted by a corporate roll-out by accident, so we just changed the SAS config as you described and everything kept working OK. My take on this is SAS is pretty JRE-version insensitive. Also IT departments are keen to update JRE because of security issues with older versions.

The main problem will be if you do strike a problem caused by JRE, SAS will say its not officially supported and ask you to roll back to the supported version - will your IT department oblige?

Quentin
Super User

Thanks SASKiwi,

I neglected to mention that we are also running a handful of BI clients, so happy to hear both PC SAS and those are working for you with JRE 1.7.

Maybe the thing for me to do is install JRE1.7 now, and point my config toward it for a couple days, to see how it goes.  Then if it breaks, I would point back to JRE 1.6 and plead my case to IT proactively.

Another set of  questions (which will reveal that I have almost no idea what JRE really is, or how it is used...)

For PC SAS, the SAS config file points to the JRE version/directory.

I'm still getting my feet wet with EG, DI Studio, SMC, WRS, SPWA.  Those clients also rely on JRE?  And they rely on the JRE that is installed locally on my PC?  If I have install both JRE 1.6 and 1.7, how do I determine which version these clients use (since AFAIK my sasv9.cfg is only for my local SAS).

Thanks,

--Q.

BASUG is hosting free webinars Next up: Jane Eslinger presenting PROC REPORT and the ODS EXCEL destination on Mar 27 at noon ET. Register now at the Boston Area SAS Users Group event page: https://www.basug.org/events.
Quentin
Super User

Ok, dug a little more.

I'm used to changing sasv9.cfg.

But stumbled accross sassw.config:

  C:\Program Files\SASHome\sassw.config

Which has just 5 lines:

[properties]

JREHOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_24\bin\java.exe

SASHOME=C:\Program Files\SASHome

DPLMTREGLOC=C:\Program Files\SASHome\deploymntreg

VJRHOME=C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASVersionedJarRepository

So is that the config file that is used by SAS clients?  Which clients rely on it?  Would assume it's used by SMC and DI Studio.  What about EG / WRS/ SPWA?


Thanks,

-Q.

BASUG is hosting free webinars Next up: Jane Eslinger presenting PROC REPORT and the ODS EXCEL destination on Mar 27 at noon ET. Register now at the Boston Area SAS Users Group event page: https://www.basug.org/events.
SASKiwi
PROC Star

Its the sassw.config that we changed. EG is an MS .Net application so doesn't use JRE. It will work regardless of JRE issues. However SAS MC, Infomap Studio and probably some other SAS clients are built using Java so will be affected. JRE is also included in a BI Server install and I would recommend that the server JRE version does not get changed from what was originally installed because of the support issue.

Quentin
Super User

Thanks again, makes sense.

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