Installing SAS on your computer

Owned by Trevor Bain
Last updated: Aug 19, 2024
4 min read

Courses will use either SAS OnDemand for Academics or SAS Viya for Learners (see SAS in Health for details). Researchers and Graduate students can get a copy of SAS to run on their own computer if the SAS cloud-based services are not appropriate given the nature or location of their data.

Note: SAS is available for Windows computers only. Researchers and Graduate students who have Mac computers and need to run SAS locally can request access to a SAS Virtual Desktop.

Getting SAS

Using a browser, navigate to the IST Webstore using the link below.

Log in if prompted and select the “Campus Licenses” tab under the “Purchase” option. Add 1 SAS license, agree to the terms and click Purchase.

Do not complete the machine authorization section where you enter your computer name (this applies only for deployments made centrally). You will get instructions to download sent to you via email.

You will receive an email with instructions on how to download the SAS software. Download the software by opening up Windows Explorer and entering “\\fileapps.uwaterloo.ca\winapps$\uwapps\SAS2024” (no quotes) in the Explorer navigation bar at the top.

Screen capture of Windows explorer with the SAS download location entered in the navigation bar

Download the file named “SAS 9-4 M8 Software Depot 64-bit.zip” to your computer. This file is 13.4GB in size so it may take a while.

Right-click on the “SAS 9-4 M8 Software Depot 64-bit.zip” file and select the “Extract all…” option to create a “SAS 9-4 M8 Software Depot 64-bit” folder on your machine. Again, this will take a while and the resulting folder will be nearly 20GB in size.

Download from the IST Webstore now

Installing SAS

  1. Open the SAS 9-4 M8 Software Depot 64-bit folder and run the setup.exe program. You will need administrator-level permission to install the program. If this is a UW-owned and managed computer, contact Health Computing for assistance.

  2. Choose Language: Select the language that you want to use during the installation, (English in this case) and click OK

    The Choose Language prompt

  3. Select Deployment Task: Select Install SAS software and click Next

  4. Specify SAS Home (this may not appear if SAS was previously installed on this machine): Accept the default (C:\Program Files\SASHome) unless you have compelling reasons to change it (more space on a different drive). Click Next

  5. Select Deployment Type: Select Install SAS Foundation and Related Software and click Next

  6. Select Products to Install: Accept the defaults. Click Next

  7. Select SAS Enterprise Guide Mode: Change selection to 64-bit Native Mode and click Next.

  8. Select SAS Foundation Products: Accept the defaults. Click Next.

  9. Specify SAS Installation Data File: Click Next

  10. Select Language Support: click Clear All and select any other languages that you want to use when running SAS. Click Next.

  11. Select Regional Settings: Accept the default and click Next.

  12. Default Product for SAS File Types: Either SAS Foundation (64-bit) or SAS Enterprise Guide (64-bit) depending upon your preference (see Three ways to run SAS). Click Next

  13. Checking System: a couple of installation windows will appear as the program prepares to install. When available, Click Next

  14. Deployment Summary: Click Start

  15. Deployment in Progress will appear detailing the installation progress.

  16. Deployment Complete. Click Next

  17. Additional Resources: Click Finish