With the official guidance of SAS TS, you're covered against any trouble that may happen. Good for you.   I have installed portable versions of SAS PC for years - and presently I am also doing so. That's why I felt quite confident to advise you in the same way.    On the contrary, knowing a little bit about the inner details of SAS Foundation installations on PC, I'll firmly keep my initial stance and never recommend to have multiple releases Mn / Mn+1 of the same principal version installed on the same machine. For instance, SAS Foundation comes with a handful of Shared Components, sometimes even shared with other SAS Software (SAS EG, SAS Add-In). However the Windows Registry keys (dozens of them) associated with these shared components cannot have multiple values ...     Of course, what SAS calls "peaceful coexistence" of different versions doesn't apply here : SAS 9.3 and SAS 9.4 PC can share the same PC (almost) without any issue. But even then, the Shared components sometimes can create some conflict.   All the best Ronan ... View more

Hello Michel, @m_oversteyns,   you don't need to be embarrased. Your questions are quite normal and aligned with IT best practices. Fortunately, during the last years SAS teams are making a great effort to include every component on the ICT best practices and even improving them on some areas.   Of course, about the IBM product, SAS cannot do really much, since it is a 3rd Party product with no real updates, just some bug maintenances. So we need to handle it as best as possible 🙂   And about the virtualization, I think it is a great option, it would make your life much easier for quick deployment of any client. Some clients based on .NET, as Enterprise Guide and the Addin for Office, sometimes give a bit of problem, but all of them quickly solved, since it depends on the Virtualization system which, some of them, do not register the COM, DCOM components properly. But after the initial installation, SAS provided tools to register them and fix the problem 😉   ... View more

Excellent @m_oversteyns, glad to read it is useful for you!   Well, indeed, but there is a reason behind it is not documented: unless you know exactly the impact of using those options, sometimes better not to know (by my own experience). So there is some information that SAS is glad to share. of course, but unly under a specific requirement. I don;t know the exact reasons behind, but that is what I would do as well for any product I create. ... View more