Octave install from windows zip file

[Lester Anderson]

Hello,

I have just done a fresh install of Octave 4.2.1 using the zip file
(octave-4.2.1-w64.zip), and that works fine. However, it has no access
to installed packages:

The packages folder is present, including the latest versions of them:

C:\Octave\octave-4.2.1\share\octave\packages

GNU Octave, version 4.2.1
Copyright (C) 2017 John W. Eaton and others.
This is free software; see the source code for copying conditions.
...

>> pkg list
no packages installed.
>> pkg load communications
error: package communications is not installed
error: called from
    load_packages at line 41 column 7
    pkg at line 411 column 7
>>

Is there a configuration file to deal with packages?

Cheers
Lester