Cloning RStudio, R and all installed packages to a new computer

RStudio IDE
1

Hi everyone,
I need to move RStudio, R and all installed packages with the current version that I am using (no updated versions) to a new computer.
Is there a way to do that?

Unfortunately, it is essential that I keep the same R, RStudio and package versions, as I saved workspaces for several analysis in my current PC and I tried opening the workspace in a different PC with an updated R and RStudio and it won't recognize the workspace with all my analyses. So, I really need to copy everything to a new computer as my current computer will be formatted.

Is there any way to do this possibly in a simple way?

I would really appreciate any help and suggestion!
Thank you!
Best,
Gabriella

2

I think you just need to install the same R and RStudio versions on the new computer and you can simply copy your package library from one computer to the other. As a side note, I believe you would benefit from using containers in your workflow.

3

Hi Andre,
thank you so much for your reply. To install previous versions (not the most updated one) of R do i just need to dowloaded one of the previous releases? https://cran.r-project.org/? and then the installation is the same?
Same for Rstudio I imagine?

And for the packages, can I just copy the folders of my installed packages from my old computer to the new one? so copy all my personal library?

What are containers for the workflow? any tutorial available?

Thanks a lot!!
Gabriella

4

Yes

Yes again

Yes

Containers are somewhat similar to a virtual machine, the idea is to create a completely reproducible environment that you can run in any computer without worrying about dependencies. The internet is full of blog posts, tutorials and online courses about it. Here is an example

5

Great, thank you so much!