[R] Fwd: Opening R in 64-bit version by default

[John C Frain]

I have checked my second proposal using Windows 7 and Duncan is
correct in saying that it will not work

.r and .Rdata files were not associated to any version of R in my set
up.  On my system .r files are associated to the editor that I am
using at any particular time.  Currently this is either rStudio or
Emacs and the usual method for switching Windows Explorer's defaults
continues to work for me.

To check my second proposal I associated ,r files to 64-bit R version
2.13.0.  Using the normal method or my second proposal I found that I
could not change the association either to 32-bit R version 2.13.0 or
to 64-bit R version 2.12.2.

At first sight it appears that the association of .r files to 64-bit
R-version 2.13.0 is permanent.  Probably the only way to get rid of
the association would be to delete all keys etc. in the registry that
have a reference to Rgui.exe (after first backing up the registry).  I
changed the name of the 64-bit rgui.exe to rgui.exe.old and tried to
change the association to the 32-bit version. This did not work   My
impression was that Windows was now looking for rgui.exe and could not
find it..

I suspect the following (I anyone knows better please let us know).
When you associate .r to a particular version of rgui.exe does
windows store the name of the program and its location in separate
places.  When you try to change the association to a program with the
same name in a different directory windows is not changing the
directory and therefore does not change the program.  Perhaps this is
due to the minimal interaction between R and the registry.  This
minimal interaction is one of the advantages of R and I would not like
to sacrifice it for the sake of solving the current problem.    I
presume that the problem is the way in which Windows Explorer
interacts with R.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem with other programs such as
emacs if they have installed in a new directory and tried to make new
file associations?

Best Regards

John.



On 25 May 2011 22:53, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25/05/2011 5:43 PM, John C Frain wrote:
>>
>> I have no problems configuring .r files to start in Emacs or RStudio
>> and then use Emacs or RStudio to call the required version of R.
>>
>> You might check when you open with other from Windows Explorer that
>> the check box "Always open with this program is ticked.
>>
>> If you are using Windows 7 you can set an change default programs as
>> follows -
>> 1 open Control Panel
>> 2 click on programs
>> 3 click Default Programs and follow the options to set the required
>> defaults.
>>
>>  I have never used Vista and dont know if this works in Vista
>
> I suspect the latter method will fail, since it's using the same tools as
> "Open with..." uses, and that appears to be buggy.  But I'm on 32 bit XP
> right now, so I can't verify.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
>>


-- 
John C Frain
Economics Department
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 2
Ireland
www.tcd.ie/Economics/staff/frainj/home.html
mailto:frainj at tcd.ie
mailto:frainj at gmail.com