RSelenium issue with startServer() on windows

Question

I just installed RSelenium from github (I have the same issue when I install it via cran) and I get the following error in windows machine:

Error in if (file.exists(file) == FALSE) if (!missing(asText) && asText ==  : 
  argument is of length zero
In addition: Warning message:
running command '"wmic" path win32_process get Caption,Processid,Commandline /format:htable' had status 44210 

From the function startServer() this is the part that is producing the error:

system2("wmic", args = c("path win32_process get Caption,Processid,Commandline", 
                                    "/format:htable"), stdout = TRUE, stderr = NULL)

When I run this part I get the following:

character(0)
attr(,"status")
[1] 44210
Warning message:
running command '"wmic" path win32_process get Caption,Processid,Commandline /format:htable' had status 44210 

My sessionInfo()

R version 3.3.1 (2016-06-21)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 7 x64 (build 7601) Service Pack 1

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_United Kingdom.1252    LC_MONETARY=English_United Kingdom.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                            LC_TIME=English_United Kingdom.1252    

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] RSelenium_1.4.2 XML_3.98-1.4    RJSONIO_1.3-0   RCurl_1.95-4.8  bitops_1.0-6   

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] httr_1.2.1      R6_2.1.2        tools_3.3.1     withr_1.0.1     curl_1.0        memoise_1.0.0   knitr_1.13      git2r_0.15.0   
 [9] caTools_1.17.1  digest_0.6.9    devtools_1.11.1

Answer 1

It is an issue with Win 7.

A htable XSL stylesheet is used to format the output of WMIC path win32_process

It results as a mismatch when using regional settings. Possible workarounds given are:

1. Copy or move the C:\\Windows\\system32\\wbem\\en-US*.xsl files up into the C:\\Windows\\system32\\wbem\\ folder.
2. Change your regional settings to match your Windows language version, log out and back in.
3. Specify the full path: WMIC process get /format:"%WINDIR%\\System32\\wbem\\en-US\\csv"

as noted in wmic error (invalid XSL format) in windows7