Background – time to upgrade to R 2.13.0
The news of the new release of R 2.13.0 is out, and the R blogosphere is buzzing. Bloggers posting excitedly about the new R compiler package that brings with it the hope to speed up our R code with up to 4 times improvement and even a JIT compiler for R. So it is time to upgrade, and bloggers are here to help. Some wrote how to upgrade R on Linux and mac OSX (based on posts by Paolo). And it is now my turn, with suggestions on how to upgrade R on windows 7.
Upgrading R on windows – the two strategies
The classic description of how to upgrade R can be found in the R project FAQ page (and also the FAQ on how to install R on windows)
There are basically two strategies for R upgrading on windows. The first is to install a new R version and copy paste all the packages to the new R installation folder. The second is to have a global R package folder, each time synced to the most current R installation (thus saving us the time of copying the package library each we upgrade R).
I described the second strategy in detail in a post I wrote a year ago titled: “How to upgrade R on windows XP – another strategy” which explains how to upgrade R using the simple two-liner code:
source("https://www.r-statistics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/upgrading-R-on-windows.r.txt")
New.R.RunMe()p.s: If this is the first time you are upgrading R using this method, then first run the following two lines on your old R installation (before running the above code in the new R intallation):
source("https://www.r-statistics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/upgrading-R-on-windows.r.txt")
Old.R.RunMe()The above code should be enough. However, there are some common pitfalls you might encounter when upgrading R on windows 7, bellow I outline the ones I know about, and how they can be solved.