I work inside a corporate environment, and use the function here() a lot to help me locate myself. For example, I might type here(), and recieve the response along the lines of
S:/R yyyy-yyy/Data-Analyst/project_1
I can use this text to open up the project folder in my S drive.
Today I installed the new version RStudio-2026.05.0-218 of R, and instead got a response along these lines
\\\yyy/shared/yyyData-Analyst/project_1
Or in other words, only sees the UNC path. This is not the same thing. So I then reinstalled my earlier version of R studio: RStudio-2026.04.0-526 - and got the S drive response. So my system has not changed, this appears to be an artefact of the new Rstudio version.
I could probably modify what the here() function does to revert to the earlier mapped drive behaviour - and can find other workarounds online - but - is this change intended? Because it is certainly not a helpful change.
It's likely how you opened the file. If your Windows folder explorer was at the "letter", it may have the letter but if you'd opened it not from the mapped location. I don't think this is about RStudio updates.
Note: I'd really recommend not using a locally mapped letter in your code. Just use the here package and the relative paths will work for all on that share drive. Something line of:
I do use the here package, exactly as you describe, all of the time. It works brilliantly.
However... a common need for me is to review other documents in the same folder, i.e a spreadsheet, so I can see what I am importing. My S-drive is complex with many folder and sub-folders - but the here() command can provide the exact file path, which I can copy and paste into Windows explorer.
As for the likely cause, this is the sequence of events:
Day before yesterday, working from RStudio-2026.04.0-526 - the mapped drive is shown
Yesterday at 9am, after downloading and installing RStudio-2026.05.0-218 - the UNC file location is shown
Yesterday at 9.30 am, after reinstalling RStudio-2026.04.0-526 - the mapped S-drive is shown.
Not other changes to coding were made during this sequence of events.
You are free to draw your own conclusions after this sequence of events - but to me, the new update is the most likely cause of the change to what is displayed.
That is definitely a frustrating shift in behavior, especially in a corporate environment where mapped drives are the standard for navigation. It sounds like the new IDE version might be resolving paths to their absolute UNC targets by default now. Have you noticed if this happens only when opening a Project file, or does it also occur if you set the working directory manually after launch? It might be an intentional change to improve path stability across different user sessions, but it certainly adds friction if you rely on the drive letters for external navigation.
Thank you for understanding my concern. To run this experiment, I would need to reinstall the new version, run the test, and install the previous version - a job for this weekend. I will do so and report back.