Learning about R environment variables and related concepts

Question

I (Windows 7 user) would appreciate if someone can give a simple explanation or direct me to a good resource for learning about R environment variables and related concepts so that I can handle them through R console or Rprofile.site . I am having hard time understanding the concept as I am trying to append different library search paths. The command help(library) was also not so clear in terms of what I was looking for as stated above.

I tried to search the web including stackoverflow but could not become free from confusion.

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/rw-FAQ.html#How-do-I-set-environment-variables_003f

?Sys.setenv ... OR ... http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/Sys.setenv.html

http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/EnvVar.html

The question about library paths might not be the same, however. See ?.libPaths