[R] Environment variable PATH in Windows

[Dennis Fisher]

Colleagues, 

I am trying to understand how R (2.12.1) obtains the PATH environment variable in Windows (7 or Vista).  Startup {base} directs one to:
	"R_ENVIRON" -- which equals "" in my systems
	R_HOME/etc/Renviron.site -- which does not exist
Next, it directs to:
	R_HOME/etc/Rprofile.site -- which also does not exist (the expected behavior in a "factory-fresh" installation)

I found the following files in R_HOME/etc:
	Makeconf
	Rcmd_environ
	Rconsole
	Rdevga
	respositories
	rgb.text
	Rprofile.txt
none of which refer to PATH (except Makeconf, which refers to JAVA path, but not to PATH itself)

Today's R-SIG-Mac Digest addresses a similar issue in OS X -- that R.app gets the values from /.MacOSX/environment.plist whereas a session started in Terminal uses .bashrc or /etc/profile.  What are the corresponding sources in Windows?

Thanks in advance.

Dennis

Dennis Fisher MD
P < (The "P Less Than" Company)
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