When I submitted the command, there was NO response.  No error message, no program started. I tried entering the command manually at the command prompt: cd .......\sasexe sasoact.exe  action=Browse  datatype=Data  filename="f:\Test\ds2.sas7bdat" (no response, no error message, just a cmd prompt for a new command) (and the command doesn't work on other drives) Thank you for the "Double-clicking a SAS file" link, as it's clearly pertinent to my question. Apparently my hope for a stand-on-its-own (registry-free) .bat command is unlikely. In any case, as this isn't a top priority, I'll try revisiting when time permits, perhaps next week or so. No, I didn't try the SAS Universal Viewer.  Maybe later. Thank you again for your input. ... View more

Thank you, ballardw. I'm hoping it's not necessary to specify a  folder path (in addition to the full path of the .sas7bdat file name) to make this work, as the .sas7bdat files are in different folders on different drives.  Of course if this is necessary, then so be it. Right now, I don't understand the LIBNAME statement enough to incorporate it into a complete .bat command line. So I'll try to look into LIBNAME to learn about it. Thank you again for your response.   ... View more

To answer several posts. I have two drives: a slow high-capacity drive (s:) that holds many large datasets: ds1.sas7bdat, ds2.sas7bdat, ... a fast smaller-capacity drive (f:) that can hold the largest dataset on s: To work on a dataset, e.g., ds2.sas7bdat, I currently: delete all files on f: (to make room) copy  s:\ds2.sas7bdat  to  drive f:   (may take a long time) start  SAS 9.4 for Windows in the Explorer pane, double-click on "This PC" navigate to f:\ds2.sas7bdat, and double-click on it (the data displays, allowing me to look at it, etc.) Instead, I like to write a .bat file for each dataset in s: to automate the above process.  E.g., ds2.bat might contain: delete  f:\*.* copy  s:\ds2.sas7bdat  f:\ (a command that starts SAS 9.4 for Windows, selects ds2.sas7dbat and opens it) I tried: "C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\core\sasexe\sasoact.exe" action=Browse datatype=Data filename="f:\ds2.sas7bdat" but it didn't work. Regarding Tom's suggestion using -initcmd, I don't understand the 'libname here "." ...' term. My preference is to use a command that works without depending on any setting in the registry, or any Windows file type association, if that's possible. Thanks to all.   ... View more

Sorry, I should have been more clear.  Yes, I included the full path of sas.exe:    [full path]\sas.exe  myfile.sas7bdat       (this doesn't work) If I exclude the filename (myfile.sas7bdat), then SAS starts up correctly.   ... View more

Hi ballardw, Your method worked (I got around the libref problem). Now I need to understand why it worked (may take a while). Thank you again. P.S.  Thanks also to the other responses, as I'd like to learn those methods also. ... View more

Thank you, ballardw. I tried the code in SAS Studio, but got: Libref .. is not assigned. I'll continue with the beginner tutorials to understand this message, and if I don't succeed, I'll return with another question! Thank you again. ... View more