Hi, As i need R to speak to Bloomberg (and big only runs on windows), i'm running windows 7 via VM Fusion on my mac. I think i am having permission problems, as i cannot use install.packages, and cannot change .libPaths via either a .Rprofile, or Profile.site. I've posted more detail in this super-user question -- http://superuser.com/questions/948083/how-to-set-environment-variables-in-vm-fusion-windows-7 Throwing it over to this list as well, as I've spent about half the time i had allowed for my project on (not getting) set up. I realise this is a very niche problem - hoping that someone else has had a similar problem, and can offer pointers. best mj [[alternative HTML version deleted]]