I noticed this under R 2.7.0 NEWS: o In package installation, SaveImage: yes is defunct and lazyloading is attempted instead. I think its premature to make SaveImage defunct especially when: 1. there is a bug that would be triggered in some packages by automatically using LazyLoad instead of SaveImage: https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2007-October/047118.html 2. only last year it was stated on R-devel that there was "no intention to withdraw SaveImage: yes" http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/devel/06/02/4025.html Having "SaveImage: yes" automatically invoke LazyLoad is really tantamount to withdrawing it. At the very least making SaveImage defunct should be postponed until the bug in #1 is fixed and a period of time has elapsed during which both SaveImage and LazyLoad are available without that bug so that packages affected can gradually move over and have the ability to move back to SaveImage if the move uncovers more R bugs related to this.