From ggrothendieck at gmail.com  Tue Dec 18 18:27:26 2012
From: ggrothendieck at gmail.com (Gabor Grothendieck)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 12:27:26 -0500
Subject: [Rd] Rtools216.exe on Windows
Message-ID: <CAP01uR=A1cx=QjhBGbm0kz1-yg960vrffWL+0jU2GkJn9V=jrQ@mail.gmail.com>

1. If your PATH is very long then on the Select Additional Tasks
screen in the Rtools installer the two check box titles (Edit the
system PATH and Save version number) will be obscured (i.e. you won't
be able to see them at all) making the screen very confusing. One just
sees two boxes on the left and a long path on the right and has no
idea what it all means.

Also even with a short path the first box will not be aligned with the
"Edit system PATH" phrase making it unclear what it refers to.

Either this should be fixed or if Inno Setup makes it difficult to
change then some verbiage should be placed at the top of the screen
explaining what its all about.

2. It would be useful if Rtools placed the paths it uses in the
registry and possibly also in a batch file too such as:

set RTOOLS_PATH=c:\Rtools\bin;c:\Rtools\gcc-4.6.3\bin

so that other software can readily access it or those not wishing to
permanently change their path have other options.

3. Its not clear from the
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/ page where the Rtools
installer source is located.  In the Download section of the
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools page is a link to
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/installer.html but the
source-tools link on that page is broken.

4. Rtools puts find.exe on your PATH which can cause existing software
using the built in find.exe in Windows to malfunction.  As a result
its dangerous to permanently add the Rtools paths to your PATH.

--
Statistics & Software Consulting
GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com



[Rd] Rtools216.exe on Windows
Gabor Grothendieck