diff --git a/vignettes/administration.Rmd b/vignettes/administration.Rmd
index 4900c495..1d47deef 100644
--- a/vignettes/administration.Rmd
+++ b/vignettes/administration.Rmd
@@ -73,6 +73,7 @@ Each vignette can be built by running (ideally in a fresh session with the worki
 ```r
 knitr::knit("vignettes_src/windows.Rmd", "vignettes/windows.Rmd")
 knitr::knit("vignettes_src/packages.Rmd", "vignettes/packages.Rmd")
+knitr::knit("vignettes_src/stan.Rmd", "vignettes/stan.Rmd")
 ```
 
 which generates a new `windows.Rmd` file within `vignettes/` that contains no runnable code and so can be safely run on CI.
@@ -137,11 +138,27 @@ This varies each time, and especially between different major R versions. But es
 * Update `I:\Java\latest.txt` to contain that new version string.
 * JAVA_HOME will then point to the root of the Java JDK, and `rJava` and `xlsx` will work happily.
 
-## Updating stan
+## stan
 
 See `vignette("stan")` for general comments about stan.
 
+To update the installation of `CmdStan` on the `I:/` (and generally available), run:
+
 ```r
 hipercow::hipercow_init(driver = "windows")
 hipercow.windows:::cmdstan_install()
 ```
+
+Users should not run this themselves into their home directories as the installation is about 1GB
+
+There are influential environment variables set at the driver level which prevent stan from breaking our Rtools installation.  These are
+
+```{echo = FALSE}
+hipercow.windows:::DEFAULT_ENVVARS[c("name", "value")]
+```
+
+For details see:
+
+* https://github.com/stan-dev/cmdstanr/issues/979
+* https://github.com/stan-dev/cmdstanr/pull/978
+* https://github.com/stan-dev/cmdstanr/pull/980
diff --git a/vignettes/stan.Rmd b/vignettes_src/stan.Rmd
similarity index 76%
rename from vignettes/stan.Rmd
rename to vignettes_src/stan.Rmd
index f512233f..9f26738e 100644
--- a/vignettes/stan.Rmd
+++ b/vignettes_src/stan.Rmd
@@ -7,6 +7,21 @@ vignette: >
   %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8}
 ---
 
+```{r setup, include = FALSE}
+source("../vignettes/common.R")
+vignette_root <- new_hipercow_root_path(TRUE)
+set_vignette_root(vignette_root)
+```
+
+```{r, echo = FALSE, results = "asis"}
+add_header()
+```
+
+```{r, include = FALSE}
+writeLines(c("repo::https://stan-dev.r-universe.dev", "cmdstanr"),
+           "pkgdepends.txt")
+```
+
 [Stan](https://mc-stan.org/) is a platform for statistical modelling, using state-of-the art algorithms.  Unfortunately, it is very peculiar about how it needs things installed, and more unfortunately it plays poorly with other packages and they change their minds about how to install things every few versions.  If you have having trouble getting your compilers working with stan, rest assured you are in good company any have been so for a decade or so!
 
 This vignette outlines some survival guides for using stan on the cluster.  They will likely stop working at some point in the future; please let us know when this happens and we can explore what the current recommended way of doing things has changed to, if there is one.
@@ -32,9 +47,8 @@ The version of the package  that you use on your own machine is not important to
 
 Your `pkgdepends.txt` should contain:
 
-```
-repo::https://stan-dev.r-universe.dev
-cmdstanr
+```{r, echo = FALSE, results = "asis"}
+plain_output(readLines("pkgdepends.txt"))
 ```
 
 (Be sure not to use the `https://mc-stan.org/r-packages` repo, still widely noted in documentation as that ships only older versions, all of which are broken.)
@@ -98,3 +112,87 @@ cmdstan_model_but_dont_recompile <- function(path, dir = ".", ...) {
 ```
 
 which you can use in place of `cmdstanr::cmdstan_model`.  Good luck.
+
+## A simple example
+
+This example is designed partly so we can test everything works, but we may ask you to run this yourselves if you are having difficulty.
+
+```{r, include = FALSE}
+writeLines(
+  c("run_stan <- function() {",
+    "  path <- tempfile()",
+    "  dir.create(path)",
+    "  mod <- cmdstanr::cmdstan_model('hello.stan', dir = path)",
+    "  stan_data <- list(N = 10, y = c(0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1))",
+    "  fit_mcmc <- mod$sample(",
+    "    data = stan_data,",
+    "    seed = 123,",
+    "    chains = 2)",
+    "}"),
+  "code.R")
+writeLines(
+  c("data {",
+    "  int<lower=0> N;",
+    "  array[N] int<lower=0,upper=1> y;",
+    "}",
+    "parameters {",
+    "  real<lower=0,upper=1> theta;",
+    "}",
+    "model {",
+    "  theta ~ beta(1,5);  // uniform prior on interval 0,1",
+    "  y ~ bernoulli(theta);",
+    "}"),
+  "hello.stan")
+```
+
+Start with a basic hipercow-for-windows setup:
+
+```{r init}
+library(hipercow)
+hipercow_init(driver = "windows")
+```
+
+We have a simple stan model `hello.stan`:
+
+```{r, echo = FALSE, results = "asis"}
+plain_output(readLines("hello.stan"))
+```
+
+And a little wrapper around this, in `code.R`, which compiles the model and draws some samples:
+
+```{r, echo = FALSE, results = "asis"}
+r_output(readLines("code.stan"))
+```
+
+We need to add our `code.R` into the default environment:
+
+```{r}
+hipercow_environment_create(sources = "code.R")
+```
+
+Our provision.txt is as above:
+
+```{r, echo = FALSE, results = "asis"}
+plain_output(readLines("pkgdepends.txt"))
+```
+
+Install everything with `hipercow_provision` as usual
+
+```{r}
+hipercow_provision()
+```
+
+Now we can run our stan task:
+
+```{r}
+id <- task_create_expr(run_stan())
+task_wait(id)
+```
+
+Here are the logs from the stan task:
+
+```
+task_log_show(id)
+```
+
+Of course, it's broken again...