How it works...

Once you follow the steps described in the How to do it… section, the R software will be installed, and it's ready to use. You can open R using either the desktop icon or quick launch icon, or from the Start menu.

However, to do some advanced-level work in R or if you want to open the R console from the Windows Command Prompt, you need to do some configuration that is specific to the operating system. In this subsection, you will see how the configuration works.

If you want to access the R terminal from the Windows Command Prompt, then you must open the Windows Command Prompt, and then type R and press Enter. However, without correctly configuring R, you won't be able to open the R terminal in this way. The following are the steps to configure R:

1. Right-click on the Computer icon and select Properties from the following screen:

1. Now, click on Advanced system settings. It will open up the System Properties window as shown in the following screenshot:

1. At the bottom of the System Properties window, you will see Environment Variables…. Click on it and it will show the following screen:

1. The Environment Variables window will pop up in which you will see two separate sections, one for User variables and another for System variables.
2. In the System variables section, select the Path variable and then click on Edit…:

1. Now, in this Path variable, add the location where you have installed R software. Choose the location where the R.exe and R.dll file belongs, for example, C:\Program Files\R\R-3.3.2\bin\x64.
2. Put the location at the end of the Path variable after putting in a semicolon (;) and then click on OK on each of the window opened.

Once you have performed the preceding steps, it is the time to check whether you have correctly configured environment variables by performing the following steps:

1. Go to the Start menu.
2. Type cmd in the search box.
3. Then, click on cmd.exe. It will open a black screen called Windows Command Prompt:

1. Type R and hit Enter. If the R console opens, then everything is alright and you have correctly configured R in Windows: