Thanks for the replies (also in private messages).

Sounds like this is indeed the case. Installing R from a user account on
Windows may appear to work fine, with no major error messages returned, but
can cause problems later when installing R packages. Uninstalling then
re-installing R as administrator should fix things.

Definitely something to keep in mind for the next workshop if Windows users
have problems installing R packages.

Best regards,
Lukas


On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:27 AM, Dale Smith <[email protected]> wrote:

> Yes, this is how you should install R - right-click and run as
> administrator. Ditto with RStudio.
>
> But install R in a folder without spaces. I use C:\R. Each version will be
> installed in its own subfolder.
>
> Dale Smith
>
> > On Sep 12, 2016, at 1:46 PM, Lukas Weber <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I was doing some work on an old Windows laptop today (I usually use a
> Mac), and had some problems installing packages. It told me packages were
> not available for the current version of R, and should be compiled from
> source instead -- but trying this with Rtools also didn't work.
> >
> > Eventually I realized the problem was due to R being installed from a
> user account without administrative rights. Removing R and re-installing it
> with administrative rights (i.e. simply right-click on the .exe and select
> "Run as administrator", then enter password) fixed things.
> >
> > Is this something that anyone else has also noticed? We had some
> problems installing packages on Windows laptops at a recent Data Carpentry
> workshop, so maybe it was the same issue.
> >
> > If anyone who uses Windows regularly can confirm this, then I suggest we
> add something to the R section of the installation instructions, noting
> that R should be installed with administrative rights, i.e. right-click and
> select "Run as administrator" instead of simply double-clicking on the
> downloaded .exe file.
> >
> > Alternatively it may simply be something to do with my system (recently
> upgraded to Windows 10). I'm sure we have some Windows experts on this
> list, who know more about this one way or the other.
> >
> > Lukas
> >
> >
> > Lukas Weber
> > PhD student
> > University of Zurich, Switzerland
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss
>
>
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