[R] Running R from a CD on Windows?

[Charles Annis, P.E.]

Greetings, R-ians:

Yes it's easy to run R from a CD: I copied my windows installation folder to
the CD, then copied my R working directory to the CD.

To run from the CD, I copy the working directory from the CD to the desktop,
and then create an R desktop icon that points to Rgui.exe on the CD, and
starts in the working directory folder I just copied to the desktop.

The problem is that to create the desktop R icon you need to know that
Rgui.exe is on the CD in the bin subfolder of the R-2.6.1 folder, which I
know but the person being introduced to R for the first time does not.  And
creating a desktop icon is busywork that some find annoying.  And then the
user needs to copy the basic working directory folder to the desktop, since
R needs to be able to write to it and writing to the CD can't work with a
write-once CD.  Alas, my uses just want to put the CD in the drive and have
the autorun facility take care all this:

1) If there isn't a folder named "R-project" on the desktop, copy the one on
the CD to the desktop.
2) Create a desktop icon for R that points to Rgui.exe on the CD.  The
installation must determine what drive is currently being accessed, since
"D:\R-2.6.1\bin\Rgui.exe" would only work if the CD was running from drive
D.
3) Have the icon Start in "desktop\R-project" which is legal if you create
the icon yourself, but apparently not legal to put on the CD since the
windows are erased and cannot be filled in if the icon is copied back from
the CD to the desktop.

Since the basic R installation on Windows can create a desktop icon, I know
this must be possible.  I would be grateful for any help.

Thanks

Charles Annis, P.E.

Charles.Annis at StatisticalEngineering.com
phone: 561-352-9699
eFax:  614-455-3265
http://www.StatisticalEngineering.com