[R] Cloning R Installation Across Multiple Computers

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 12-03-02 5:32 AM, Tom Hopper wrote:
> I would like to set up identical R installations, with the same packages,
> on multiple computers and with minimal interaction by users. Ideally, I
> would like to have an installation script that the user can just run that
> will set up everything, including R itself and base packages.
>
> Standard packages would need to include ggplot2 and its dependencies, Rcmdr
> and its dependencies and some Rcmdr plug-ins. Best of all would be to have
> the script include JGR and Deducer in the installation. This would be set
> up on Windows XP 32-bit, and all packages have to install from local .zip
> files; R cannot get to the package servers through our firewall.
>
> I could do the setup once, manually, on one machine, but I'm not sure if I
> can simply copy the R installation directory to other computers and have it
> still work. I don't think that the Windows registry wouldn't be configured
> if I did it this way, and I'm not sure that JGR would be correctly
> installed. Another approach would to have the user install R, then copy the
> R directory tree from another computer that has been set up, and finally
> JGR would have to be installed by the user. I'd like to roll this all into
> one, simple step that the users don't have to worry about screwing up.
>
> I recall that there has been some discussion of this on r-help in the past,
> but I seem to be using the wrong search terms as I cannot find anything.
> Any suggestions for, or pointers to, solutions will be much appreciated.
>

See the Installation and Administration manual, in particular the 
section (3.1.8, I think) on building the Inno Setup installer.

You may even find the MSI installer more convenient, but that code is 
tested less, and is unsupported.

Duncan Murdoch