[R] Problem Invoking System Commands from R

[Matt Borkowski]

Hello,
First please keep in mind I am not a programmer and know very little about R. I am running the 64bit version of R on a Windows 8.1 machine. I am trying to run a script (which I have successfully run in the past) to download some weather data from a NOAA ftp site.
When I attempt to run the following command:     system("wget -P data/raw ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/noaa/2013/724620-23061-2013.gz")

it returns status 127, which as I understand simply means the command will not run.
If I go directly to my command prompt in Windows, navigate to my working director, and run     wget -P data/raw ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/noaa/2013/724620-23061-2013.gz
the command runs and the file downloads without a problem. 
Playing around, it seems I can't invoke any system commands from R. Even a simple      system("dir")
returns status 127.
I have moved to a new computer since I last successfully ran this script...I'm wondering if this might be a permissions issue or other security setting preventing me from invoking system commands.
Any ideas?
-Matt
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