Could the Windows installer edit PATH?

I have just diligently upgraded my R installation for Windows XP Pro to
1.8.0.  As an ESS user and R package builder, part of this upgrade process
for me always involves editing the PATH environment variable by hand to
update the location of the R bin directory.

Would it be possible or desirable for the R for Windows
installer/uninstaller to optionally edit the PATH itself? (as, for example,
the Activestate Perl installer has an option to update the PATH with the
Perl bin directory).

Why do you need to edit PATH?  I never have the rw10xx/bin directory
in my Desktop PATH.  I do set the PATH in a terminal window when
working with R, but I do that via the shell startup options (.tcshrc
in my case).

It is I believe possible to get the installer to do this, but it may
well not be allowed: our students are not allowed to set it (denied
by a
Windows profile setting).

Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:

Why do you need to edit PATH?  I never have the rw10xx/bin directory
in my Desktop PATH.  I do set the PATH in a terminal window when
working with R, but I do that via the shell startup options (.tcshrc
in my case).

Emacs needs to know the location of Rterm.exe to run ESS.

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003, Chris Jackson wrote:

Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:

Why do you need to edit PATH?  I never have the rw10xx/bin directory
in my Desktop PATH.  I do set the PATH in a terminal window when
working with R, but I do that via the shell startup options (.tcshrc
in my case).

Emacs needs to know the location of Rterm.exe to run ESS.

Yes, but it can be told.
  (setq inferior-R-program-name "/path/to/R/bin/Rterm")
in a .emacs file