run R as administrator

Question

I was using my own laptop to install R and I found that it only has one library. Evne though this library is still read only, everytime when I use Rstudio: install.packages("abc"), I can see that the new packages are stored automatically into that read only library folder.

In my office's desktop, I "believe" I also have administrator role, as I can install and remove anything (by far). I download the latest version of R and I right click the R-3.4.1-win.exe, there is an item "run as administrator", then it is installed in my desktop. However, when I use R studio to install new packages as in my laptop, it always automatically create a personal folder to store the new packages. I don't know why. Is that a way to only have one folder for library? I also tried on the desktop in the plain R mode (without using Rstudio). When I want to install new packages, it always says

Warning in install.packages("devtools") :
  'lib = "C:/Program Files/R/R-3.4.1/library"' is not writable

And there is a window pops up to ask me "would you like to create a personal folder?" And if I say no, then

Error in install.packages("devtools") : unable to install packages.

Is there a ways to solve this problem? To just maintain one folder for library

Answer 1

What version of Windows are you using? You should be able to right-click on the Rstudio.exe icon, click Properties, and select an option to always run Rstudio as administrator. Be sure you use that same icon whenever you want to open Rstudio.