How to Install Sas University Edition on Windows

November 24, 2021

Statistical Analysis System (SAS) , one of the most powerful data analytical software in the market which has recently released a university edition of its software. Despite being proprietary software, the developers have decided to do so, to help the students learn the basics of SAS programming. This edition offers the user all the basic functionalities of the industry level SAS software suite and hence it is a good place to start your journey into SAS programming from here. This walk-through is up-to-date with the recent changes that SAS has made to the setup process, which also includes the complimentary installation of JupyterLab.

Downloading the SAS University Edition

The SAS University Edition can be downloaded from here. This will direct you to the page shown below.

SAS University Edition download page

Here, you can select the appropriate Operating System and move ahead with the process.

Downloading VM VirtualBox

The first step involves downloading the Oracle VM Virtual Box by click here, which will be used to run the SAS Studio. Download the software for your preferred OS and install the Virtual Box.
On successful completion of the installation process, it will show like below:

Setting up your Work Space

Just like any other application, SAS Studio has to assign a working directory. All files (may it be SAS programs or data sets) will be uploaded/downloaded into this directory. Choose your desired directory, and create a new folder named as SASUniversityEdition (with no spaces). Inside this newly created folder, create another folder called myfolders (again, with no spaces). These folders will now act as SAS Studio's primary workspace.

Downloading the SAS Studio vApp

The next step involves downloading the SAS University Edition vApp, which will later be loaded into the Virtual Machine to create a local instance of the SAS Studio. However, to download the file, a SAS profile is needed. So, quick signup into the website will allow you to continue with the download.
Clicking on the download button will redirect you to this web page, where you'll need to either sign in or sign up.
Once you sign in and agree to the terms and conditions, you'll be able to download the SAS vApp file. The download might take a while since it's a big file ~1.7GB.

Setting up the SAS environment

Step 1: Launch the Oracle VM virtual Box.

Step 2: Import the SAS Studio OVA file from the Downloads folder.

On completion of step 2, your Virtual Box should look like this.

Step 3: Select the SAS University Edition vApp, and click on the Machine menu and select the settings part of it.

Step 4: Select the shared folders option and then click the Add Folder icon (+).

Step 5: Choose the "Other" option under the Folder Path input, and select the myfolders present in the SASUniversityEdition folder. Make sure the Read-Only option is not selected else, SAS Studio won't be able to save files to this directory.