For those who often work with R code, it is convenient to package commonly used functions, data structures, documentations and other helping files into packages. Prior to submission of such packages to CRAN, it is necessary to go through the CRAN policies and the checklist for CRAN submissions to make sure that the package meets the standard of CRAN.

One step in the checklist is to make sure that the package, especially when it contains compiled code (in C or C++, for instance), can compile under Windows without error. There are three ways to ensure this:

  1. Use the Winbuilder service, which checks packages on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows using a current development version of R. Since the same infrastructure is used by the CRAN team for checking submitted packages, this way can be a great sanity check once local checks are successful.
  2. Use the rhub service, which is a multi-platform build and check service for R packages. It is not managed by the CRAN team and therefore the configuration may differ.
  3. Last but not least, it is always possible to setup a local environment to check the package.

To setup a local environment in Windows, one can follow the instructions given by R Installation and Administration, which is often very informative despite the lengthiness. In short, one just needs to install Rtools, together with either a regular R program that can be found on CRAN, or in cases of experimental Rtools (Rtools40 as of writing, 29.04.2019), a daily building of R-testing, which is a modified version of R-devel configured for the toolchain.

In addition to Rtools and R, one may need a Windows client of Git, for instance available git-scm.com. Now happy checking out your code and checking it in Windows!