How do you change the version of R running in Visual Studio 2017?

Question

I would like to run R version 3.4 instead of the current, 3.3.2, and don't really know where to begin.

Web searches left we with little, perhaps, though, because I am not used to working on the Windows 10 platform and don't fully understand how the components in Visual Studio are layered.

Answer 1

RTVS should detect all the versions of R you've got installed on your machine, in which case @pwjvr's answer is correct. You should be able to click on the workspace item in the corner and choose a different version to switch to. A "workspace" is what RTVS calls a specific R installation that can be used to run your code.

In the situation where RTVS doesn't detect R, you can add it manually. Go to the workspace window (R Tools -> Windows -> Workspaces). This should pop up a window like the one below.

Click on Add, and fill in the entries:

• Entry name: name you want to give this workspace
• Host URL or path: location of the R install, eg C:\Program Files\R\R-3.4.1
• R command line arguments: any arguments to pass to the R binary. Generally you can leave this blank.