[Rd] Windows: adding R/bin folder to the PATH variable

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008, Gorjanc Gregor wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Under Windows R is installed, but its bin folder is not added to the 
> system PATH variable. I know that this is handled properly under *nix 
> like systems and I wonder, why this is not the default also for the MS 
> Windows? I guess that for most users a shortcut on the desktop or 
> anywhere else is sufficient, but there are occasions when one expects to 
> able to lunch R from anywhere - say the Command prompt.

This is the normal behaviour of Windows applications.  There are several 
reasons, including length limits on the Windows PATH (which are 
version-specific) and that shells are not normally used -- most Unix 
shells hash the path contents so lookup is (almost) independent of the 
number of applications on the path.

If you run a shell (e.g. the Command prompt) you can set the path for that 
shell, and indeed I have my system setup to use a different path in shells 
than used from the desktop).

Finally, those Windows installers that do add to the PATH frequently fail 
to uninstall correctly.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595