[R] Can I safely use an installed R folder in a portable manner?

[Jim Lemon]

Hi Marc,
I do this quite often with Tcl-Tk. All you have to do is make sure
that the PATH contains the correct location for the R executable if
you don't specify it within your program.

Jim
On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 1:58 AM Marc Capavanni via R-help
<r-help using r-project.org> wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> I'm currently using R on Windows as part of a piece of software and when
> I'm providing it to users I have an application that runs the R
> installation file with an INF file containing the following settings as to
> not disrupt existing installs of R on their system.
>
> [Setup]
> Lang=en
> Dir=.\R_Install\
> Group=R
> NoIcons=1
> SetupType=user32
> Components=main,i386
> Tasks=
> [R]
> MDISDI=MDI
> HelpStyle=HTML
>
> The aim using this INF file is that the install should not touch the
> registry, or add any icons/shortcuts anywhere.
>
> This R install does not need to do much aside from provide the R
> executables (particularly rscript.exe) for use, so I don't need it to be on
> the PATH, for it to handle R files being double clicked by the user, etc.
>
> However, I've recently found that taking the installed R folder and using
> it on another PC without running the installer *seems* to work just fine
> (at least for my use case of simply accessible the executables). This would
> make "installing"/"uninstalling" easier as it would simply be a case of
> copying the folder, and later on deleting it.
>
> I was wondering if there is anything I'm missing here that would make this
> not feasible.
>
> Can I safely use an installed R folder, as a base for copying it to other
> PCs in a portable manner?
>
> Thanks,
> Marc
>
>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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