R: cannot run specific cmd code that converts .xls to .xlsx

Long time reader, first time writter...

Im writting some R code that shall take some data input from other sources. One place can only give data as a .xls format. While there is good excel capabilities in R, this .xls file cannot be read from R. But if i convert it to .xlsx R handels it fine. So im gonna convert it.

In a direct cmd input, i cann convert it by doing as below:

"C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Office/root/Office16/excelcnv.exe" -oice "C:/Users/my_name/OneDrive - work/Documents/Dashboard code/New Code/work_STD_TEMPLATE.xls""C:/Users/my_name/OneDrive - work/Documents/Dashboard code/New Code/work_STD_TEMPLATE2.xlsx"

But I wish to automate the code, so implementing this would be best. See below for the version i can compile and run.

R-code:

args = c("C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Office/root/Office16/excelcnv.exe" , 
         '-oice' , "C:/Users/my_name/OneDrive - work/Documents/Dashboard code/New Code/work_STD_TEMPLATE.xls" , "C:/Users/my_name/OneDrive - work/Documents/Dashboard code/New Code/work_STD_TEMPLATE2.xlsx");
system2(args)

But while it runs it stalls the system and finally promts a pop-upbox that tells me:

excelcnv.exe - Application Error The application was unable to start correctly (0x0000142).

I need big brain person for this. Thanks in advance

Found answer last night:

 args = "\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Office\\root\\Office16\\excelcnv.exe\" -oice \"C:\\Users\\my_name\\OneDrive - work\\Documents\\Dashboard code\\New Code\\work_STD_TEMPLATE.xls\" \"C:\\Users\\my_name\\OneDrive - work\\Documents\\Dashboard code\\New Code\\work_STD_TEMPLATE2.xlsx\""
   system("cmd.exe" , input = args)

I needed to escape charterer the escape characters... so \ had to be \ and " had to be \"