Many thanks to all who responded to my cri de coeur: Charles Annis,
John Bollinger, Petr Pikal, Brian Ripley, Duncan Murdoch, Dan
Nordlund, and Richard Heiberger. (I don't think --- I hope --- I
haven't missed anyone.)
The essential solution to my problem was indeed to eliminate that
@#@$#@$^#@ ``.txt'' extension from the filename. I.e. the file must
be called ``.Rprofile'' and NOT ``.Rprofile.txt''. (No shit,
Sherlock!)
So how to effect this? Several people suggested using a better
editor than Notepad (Good Idea!) but even Notepad can be coerced into
cooperating by clicking on ``All Files'' in the ``Save as type''
wrecked-angle, rather than leaving in the default option
``Text Documents (*.txt)''.
In retrospect this seems rather obvious ... sigh.
It was also pointed out to me that one can keep Windoze from hiding
the file extension (which is its confusing default behaviour and which
substantially contributed to my frustration).
I achieved this by clicking on
Start --> Control Panel --> Tools --> Folder Options --> View
and then unchecking ``Hide extensions for known file types'' and
clicking on ``Apply to All Folders''.
Thanks again to everyone.
cheers,
Rolf Turner
rolf at math.unb.ca
