Enterprise Guide 64-bit - why?

[jmic_nyk]

Hi everyone!

Can anyone explain to me why I should use the 64-bit version of EG? What's the difference to the 32-bit version - apart from the limited amount of memory the 32-bit version can allocate? Using win10 (expect it to be a 64bit OS installation), 16Gb RAM, Intel i5 cpu.

Is the 64-bit more 'demanding' when it comes to memory or what?

Can both be installed on the same pc?

SAS Institute recommends the 32-bit according to the installation procedure. Why?

Should I choose the 64-bit version to avoid disk-swapping?

[ChrisHemedinger · Accepted solution]

We usually recommend 32-bit for most users (and it's the default install selection). To the extent that SAS Enterprise Guide interacts with other 32-bit apps you might have (like MS Office), the 32-bit version of EG helps with compatibility and interoperability.

The SAS session that you connect to does the heavy lifting of data access and computing...and so 64-bit SAS is really these days the standard. But as a client app, using 32-bit SAS Enterprise Guide is fine.

We offer a 64-bit version as it might help with use cases like very large EG projects, or if you've gone "all in" on 64-bit apps on your desktop (including Office), then 64-bit offerings might be more interoperable.

[jmic_nyk]

Tnx Chris! Of course it's the interaction with office that's important here. I have to find out if our office is 32 or 64 bit.

[ChrisHemedinger]

Note that there are lots of "Office operations" that don't rely on the MS Office process and so bitness doesn't matter. These include:

• proc import and export (SAS does this work, not EG)
• Import Data task for XLSX files (EG reads the files directly, Excel is usually not used)
• LIBNAME ODBC -- SAS does this work

But it will definitely matter for direct EG->ODBC connections, where the bitness of the ODBC driver and EG must match. Note that using EG directly with ODBC is kind of the slow way to get data into SAS, LIBNAME ODBC (or another SAS/ACCESS method) is much better.

[jmic_nyk]

Thanks again.
Our EG connects to a Linux server so I don't think this will be a big issue - but I'll have it in mind.