Don't Run These Programs While Running SAS

[NKormanik]

What do you folks avoid running (in Windows, 64-bit, 32 gig RAM) while running SAS?

In other words, while running a SAS job, if you do something else at the same time, you will likely get incorrect answers in SAS, or failure of some kind.

Possible examples:

Check your email?

Edit a document in Word?

Work on an Excel spreadsheet?

Watch a YouTube video?

etc.

Any insights appreciated.

Nicholas Kormanik

[Rick_SAS · Accepted solution]

You do not need to be concerned. Computer programs that run in separate processes cannot interfere with each other's "answers." You won't get an incorrect answer or failure because you are running a second program concurrently with SAS. I've been running SAS for 23 years and I have had email, Word, browsers, graphics applications, etc, running at the same time. I have never encountered an error due to running another program.

Now, the PERFORMANCE of SAS can be affected if you are using another program that consumes a lot of RAM or is very CPU intensive. In that situation, the operating system will share resources between SAS and the other program. You might observe that the SAS program takes longer to finish, but you will still get the correct answer.

[NKormanik]

Welcomed reassurance, Rick. Thanks so much!

Hope you are well, and all is good at your end.

[Kurt_Bremser]

The biggest RAM-eaters on desktops are usually the browsers, when run with multiple tabs and visiting websites that load mountains of javascript or download applets; my Safari is reported with a whopping 5.5 GB by the Mac's activity display. The next is University Edition VM (where the use of 2.18 GB comes naturally).

You may also consider other RAM-heavy software like video or sound editing (32 tracks of uncompressed 96kHz/24bit need a LOT), or mechanical simulations or the like; these can easily force the system to start paging, which slows down any computer, and Windows in particular (because Windows uses a file for paging).

I don't know yet about the new Flight Simulator, but don't be surprised if that slowed down your SAS to a trickle 😉

But my bottom line is: you won't get wrong results as long as the log's clean. You might get ERROR's or WARNINGs, which will alert you.