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You can find the installation files and all necessary information regarding installation on one of the mirror sites of the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). Select the link for your operating system, which will take you to the download site for the latest distribution of R.
R is a wonderful programming language for statistics and data management, used widely in industry, business, government, medicine and so on. And it's free, an open source product. The S language, of which R is essentially an open source version, won the ACM Software System Award in 1998.
You can find detailed installation instructions in the R Installation and Adminstration manual on CRAN. For Windows, you take the following steps:
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- Go to CRAN, click Download R for Windows, click Base, and download the installer for the latest R version.
- Right-click the installer file and select Run as Administrator from the pop-up menu.
- Select the language to be used during installation.This doesn’t change the language used by R; all messages and Help files remain in English.
- Follow the instructions of the installer.You can safely use the default settings and just keep clicking Next until R starts installing.
R exists in a 32-bit and 64-bit architecture. If you have a 64-bit Windows version, you can easily install both architectures next to each other. (The installer will do this by default.) For other systems, you can find more information in the R Installation and Administration manual.
The 32-bit version of R is perfectly fine — sometimes it’s even a bit faster than the 64-bit version. You need the 64-bit version only if you require more work memory than the 32-bit version can handle. (On Windows, the maximum is about 3GB for a 32-bit system.)
If you want to be able to personalize your R installation as explained here, you should install R outside the Program Files folder (for example, in C:R). This way, you avoid trouble with the default Windows folder protection.
Mac OS X and Linux users especially need to read the instructions on the CRAN site carefully. R can be installed on all systems, but depending on your version of OS X or Linux, you may need to follow special procedures to install R successfully. Not following these procedures could harm your system.