How to keep using R version 2.x and download packages automatically with install.packages() by package name?

Question

My work setup relies heavily on rcom library, which is so far unavailable for R 3.x (due to licensing problems).

I'm happy to keep using the R v. 2.15.3, but the install.packages doesn't fetch new packages anymore.

Is there any way of making old R download packages on demand with something like install.packages("MASS")?

Answer 1

OK, this is the fallback solution:

We can always download (windows) old packages from this location on the CRAN site and unpack the ZIPs into C:\Program Files\R\R-2.15.3\library or equivalent. But it would be cool to use some form of simple R command for doing it.

It is also possible to try using different mirrors, because mirrors are not equivalent with respect to volume of archives.

At least this is how I do it on (virtual) Windows XP 32 bit.