R CMD on Windows 7 Error - "R" is not recognized as an internal or external command,

Question

I'm exploring package building on Windows 7 but have been running into trouble after reaching the Command Prompt stage. The following thread appears to be on the same topic that I'm having trouble with, but the question remains unresolved:

• Cannot install R package in Windows 7

The problem: whenever I try an R CMD command in Command Prompt (eg I've tried R CMD install pkgName , R cmd install pkgName , Rcmd install pkgName , where pkgName is a place-holder for an actual package that has been R CMD check ed on OS X and also posted on CRAN, where I have the unzipped source in the current working directory), I get the following error message:

'R' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

(If I try the Rcmd install pkgName command, then the error starts out as 'Rcmd' is not... .) Note that even if I type in just R in Command Prompt and hit enter, I get the same error, so I'm not even able to bring up R here, though it opens perfectly fine in its stand-alone interface.

I have examined the following guides without success in identifying the trouble:

• Karl W Broman's website
• Rob J Hyndman's website
• Steven Mosher's blog

The most immediate thing that came to mind was that the path variables in Windows were not set right, but this also has not (yet) led to the answer. For example, I have triple-checked the paths to ensure they are correct, including for the R version number, that x64 in the path name is accurate, etc.

I realize this is a complex issue to remotely diagnose, but any advice and suggestions on resolving this trouble is appreciated. For reference, below are the steps I have taken already to try to resolve this issue:

• Uninstall R and Rtools
• Install the latest version of R (2.15.0)
• Install Rtools215 to match R version 2.15.0
• Originally I let Rtools specify the path variables (turning that option on during installation). No success after this method.

• I updated the path variables on my computer, where the below paths were used:

   C:\Rtools\bin; C:\Program Files\R\R-2.15.0\bin\x64;

• I've also tried the R CMD (and Rcmd ) commands with the following paths included (note that these paths don't lead to anything on my computer, so I tried doing R CMD / Rcmd with and without them specified):

   C:\Rtools\perl\bin; C:\Rtools\MinGW\bin;

• Tried adding/removing the following path, which goes to the only other folder visible within the Rtools folder:

   C:\Rtools\gcc-4.6.3;

• Tried multiple variations of the R CMD commands, as noted earlier.

• I tried this all a few months ago when I had R version 2.14.1 and Rtools214 installed, and I had the exact same trouble.

Note: I already had Cygwin installed prior to R and Rtools, and I have not installed MikTeX (yet).

Answer 1

• Have you closed the command prompt and opened a new one after adjusting the PATH?
• Enter the command PATH on the command line and ensure that you are properly updating your path
• Try navigating to the directory where R.exe is saved and running it locally -- cd C:\Program...\bin\x64 , R.exe .
• Ensure that you're running on Windows' Command Prompt and not Cygwin's terminal
• If you actually have a space after the semi-colon in your PATH, you'll need to remove that: /bin;C:/Program... . Try combining that with Joshua's solution.

Answer 2

I attach my whole solution here:

1. Install Rtools which is compatible with my R version
2. Add PATH: C:\Program Files\R\R-2.15.1\bin\x64;C:\Rtools\bin;C:\Rtools\gcc-4.6.3\bin
3. In cmd, enter: R CMD INSTALL packagename

Click "enter", done.

Answer 3

I had a lot of trouble getting this to work, and finally found the golden nugget on r-project (R doesn't like spaces in paths) so here's how I finally did all this:

• I installed R to "c:\programs" instead of "c:\program files...". My final path to RSCRIPT.exe is "C:\Programs\R\R-2.15.2\bin\Rscript.exe"
  • I added that directory to my PATH, but that doesn't seem to help
  • RStudio is also installed under c:\Programs (eg c:\Programs\RStudio), but RTools is installed under the "c:\" root directory (eg c:\RTools).
• I downloaded all the packages to "c:\downloads\r"
• I opened a command prompt in "c:\downloads\r" and ran the R CMD install from this downloads directory, specifying the path to R
  • eg "C:\Programs\R\R-2.15.2\bin\x64\R CMD INSTALL colorspace_1.2-0.zip"

Answer 4

It appears that the CMD processor is Case Sensitive. You have to use INSTALL vs. install

Answer 5

Simple solution, use quotes:

c:> "C:\Program Files\WinZip\wzunzip.exe"

if you run this, you don't need to worry about the space in Program Files.

Hope this help.

Answer 6

I encountered a similar problem while trying to use SparkR from Windows Power Shell. Each time I would do ".\sparkR.cmd" (I was inside the folder containing this file), it would throw an error message like,

cmd is not recognized as an internal and external command...blah...blah...blah.

I solved the problem by adding "C:\Windows\System32" to my PATH.

I restarted my system and then repeated the process and this time, I saw a new error,

R is not recognized as an internal and external command...blah...blah...blah.

I tried all sorts of approaches, including the ones mentioned above. NOTHING WORKED, I was probably wasn't efficient enough to make it work.

Then I came across this place at code.google . I simply copied the R.bat onto a notepad, named it as R.bat. Kept it inside the folder where sparkR.cmd was located. For me it was,

C:\Apache\spark-1.5.1-bin-hadoop2.6\bin\

The I placed it on my PATH as:

C:\Apache\spark-1.5.1-bin-hadoop2.6\bin\R.bat

Restarted my laptop, opened my Power Shell as an administrator and typed:

.\R.bat help

It worked fine. Then I typed,

.\sparkR.cmd

and there it was.

It worked.

I hope it helps to people new to R. Thank you G. Grothendieck .

Answer 7

In the.bat file add a line of code specifying the path of the folder where R is installed and then give the path of the script as follows -

@ECHO OFF
PATH C:\Program Files\R\R-3.5.1\bin
R CMD BATCH D:\project_abc\helloworld.R

Following this, run the.bat file and you will see the code in the script will run smoothly.

Answer 8

In my case the issue was solved by using Edit instead of New while selecting PATH in the window below:

enter image description here

After selecting Edit I added the directory below:

C:\Program Files\R\R-4.0.2\bin\x64

This solved the issue in my case.