SAS 9.4 fails after uninstalling 9.3

[Fugue]

After installing, testing and configuring SAS 9.4, EG 7.1, and AMO 7.1 on various Windows 7 x64 Professional machines - with SAS 9.3 previously installed - uninstalling SAS 9.3 causes SAS 9.4 to fail.

The only advice SAS Technical Support has provided on this issue is to follow SAS Usage Note 46922 (http://support.sas.com/kb/46/922.html), particularly step 11, regarding uninstall of 9.3, and then to reinstall 9.4 from the depot.

This procedure certainly works, but frankly it is quite time-consuming to effectively run the installer 3 times (install 9.4, uninstall 9.3, reinstall 9.4) to perform one installation;and I find this is especially frustrating after 9.4 was already confirmed to be working.

I'm wondering if anyone else has figured out how to successfully uninstall 9.3 after 9.4 is installed without 9.4 subsequently blowing up?

One final note: Windows always issues a "Program Compatibility Assistant" warning after attempting to  uninstall SAS 9.3.

SAS error messages (all or part) are provided for reference below:

Error Message:
   When starting Base SAS 9.4:
"OLE: Object's class is not registered in the registration database . . ." The Enhanced Editor is missing.

When starting EG 7,.1:
"Warning: Required component is missing. The SAS Object Manager (part of the Integration Technologies client) is not installed or
registered on this machine, or the installed version is older than that supplied with Enterprise Guide . . ."

Once started, EG issues: "No SAS servers available: A local SAS server was not found and no metadata profile is being used . . . "

Attempting to connect to a server in AMO 7.1 results in:
"Connection Failed: A connection could not be established to a metadata server . . . Retrieving the COM class factory for component
with CLSI {868CEBF-4D78-43C-96B4-F5B6C0341151} failed due to the following error: 80040154 Class not registered . . . }

[ballardw]

If you did not roll out 9.4 to all of the machines then 1) uninstall 9.3  2) install 9.4.

[Fugue]

I appreciate the feedback, but you haven't answered my question. Uninstalling 9.3 first means I have to completely configure 9.4 from scratch.

[Fugue]

ballardw - I apologize if my response seems terse. SAS 9.4 is already installed on the client machines alongside 9.3.

I guess I'm perturbed because, in my experience, SAS has never forced us to switch to a new version while also expiring the previous version. Perhaps my memory is bad.

In any case, this has resulted in weeks of work that was not on my workplan - in a year that was already overflowing with work demands, To add insult to injury, the final step (uninstalling SAS 9.3) results in 9.4 failure and then more hours of unplanned work.

SAS needs to fix their buggy uninstaller, rather than forcing their customers to deal with it. 

[Kurt_Bremser]

Just a sidenote:

A UNIX install of SAS does not have a "SharedFiles" directory, and everything in the sas installation directory has a versioned subdirectory, which means that there can be no such collisions.

Another reason on my list why the Microcrap has to be avoided like the plague for anything that's at least halfway important. Can the toyboxes, get a UNIX server.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Installing anything but the most basic Base SAS in parallel is always dangerous, especially on Windows, as there may be parts of the registry that are not version-specific and will be trashed by an eventual uninstall.

I've even stopped doing parallel installs on UNIX (where they are intrinsically easier) because of the problems of port usage etc.

I now do installs of new versions on a new machine (quite easy in a virtualized environment), and switch over once the new platform is validated.

If you can't do this, but have to upgrade several client computers, I'd do a prototype install on a clean machine, and keep a "cookbook" for all the steps that were necessary to get it running as needed. Then I'd go from client to client and do an uninstall/install, following the cookbook.

[DanielKaiser]

Hey Fugue,

I had the same Problem with our installations.

We have several different SAS-Installations on hundreds of PCs.

Till this year we had a mix of 9.3 and 9.4 installations where we already had to take care, that 9.3 is installed before 9.4.

When we upgraded our 9.3 environments to 9.4 our installationmanagement locked all 9.3-SASHomes for any read or write access to prevent them of being used.
So we ran in the same problem, you mentioned. We ware unable to use 9.4 or do any updates (like hotfix install...).

I found out, that the problem are the shared files, that are installed by the first SAS-Installation the occurs on the machine.

By default, those shared files are installed in the SASHome of the first sas-installation and any following sas-installation uses those shared files.

But it is possible, to force SDW, to use an predefined directory for those shared files.

You have to do two steps

1) You have to create the directory wherever you want it (For example C:\Program Files\SAS_SharedFiles)

2) You have to create this RegKey

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SAS Institute Inc.\Common Data\Shared Files

With an REG_SZ-Key containing your Path (C:\Program Files\SAS_SharedFiles)

So as an RegKey-File it would be

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SAS Institute Inc.\Common Data\Shared Files]

@="C:\\Program Files\\SAS_SharedFiles"

All following installations will uses this directory to keep there shared files.

Unfortunately, you might have to reinstall all SAS-Installations, to use this workaround.

Because each SAS-Software has its own shared files, it might not be enough, to only reinstall one installation.

But after doing this steps you will never run again in this problem.

I hope this helps you.

Kind Regards

Daniel

[Fugue]

DJDaniel - in future, would this procedure solve the problem of an uninstall of a previous version of SAS (e.g. 9.3) when a later version is present (e.g 9.4)?

[DanielKaiser]

@Fugue I know, thats an old post, but Maybe someone in the future will see and read this, so I will answer this.
When the RegKey is set, there should no longer be any Problems with installing or uninstalling SAS-Software.
But be Aware, that you may have to set the RegKey again after any uninstall, since SAS seems to delete the RegKey while its uninstall-task.