The global npm directory is not put in the environment variable

[waiholiu]

If this is a question about how to use NVM4W, please use stackoverflow instead.

If this is an issue regarding antivirus, make sure you search the existing issues first.

My Environment

• Windows 7 or below (not truly supported due to EOL - see wiki for details)

• Windows 8

• Windows 8.1

• Windows 10

• Windows 10 IoT Core

• Windows Server 2012

• Windows Server 2012 R2

• Windows Server 2016

• My Windows installation is non-English.

I'm using NVM4W version:

• [ x] 1.1.7
• 1.1.6
• 1.1.5
• 1.1.4
• 1.1.3
• 1.1.2
• 1.1.1
• Older
• OTHER (Please Specify)

I have already...

• [x ] read the README to be aware of npm gotchas & antivirus issues.
• [x ] reviewed the wiki to make sure my issue hasn't already been resolved.
• [x ] verified I'm using an account with administrative privileges.
• [x ] searched the issues (open and closed) to make sure this isn't a duplicate.
• [x ] made sure this isn't a question about how to use NVM for Windows, since gitter is used for questions and comments.

My issue is related to (check only those which apply):

• settings.txt
• proxy support (Have you tried version 1.1.0+?)
• 32 or 64 bit support (Have you tried version 1.1.3+?)
• Character escaping (Have you tried version 1.1.6+?)
• A standard shell environment (terminal/powershell)
• A non-standard shell environment (Cmder, Hyper, Cygwin, git)

Expected Behavior

After I install nvm-windows, the C:\Users\admin\AppData\Roaming\npm that contains all my global commands should be added into PATH variable but this is not.

Actual Behavior

This is not - I have to manually go and add this directory to PATH variable

Steps to reproduce the problem:

Install nvm-windows
run npm install -g @angular/cli
close powershell window and re-open
run "ng new newProject"
It's going to say it "ng is not recognised command"
Go into environment variables, and add "C:\Users\admin\AppData\Roaming\npm" to PATH
Open another powershell window, and run "ng new newProject", it'll now work

[waiholiu]

Actually maybe this is me misunderstanding how nvm-windows is supposed to work.

Can someone clarify, is nvm-windows supposed to put my global npm packages (eg. yarn, ng) into c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\nvm?

It looks to me on my computer, the global packages are put in c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\npm - only the node versions are put into c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\nvm.

This is why the global commands do not work until I add c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\npm into SYSTEM PATH.

[zoltanbedi]

Can someone clarify, is nvm-windows supposed to put my global npm packages (eg. yarn, ng) into c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\nvm?

No it is not. That is the right behavior you are experiencing. Also nvm adds the c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\npm to the PATH if it didn't you couldn't access npm.

[waiholiu]

Can someone clarify, is nvm-windows supposed to put my global npm packages (eg. yarn, ng) into c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\nvm?

No it is not. That is the right behavior you are experiencing. Also nvm adds the c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\npm to the PATH if it didn't you couldn't access npm.

Ok well it didn't add the c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\npm directory to PATH for me. I had to manually add this afterwards.

It added NVM_HOME which linked to c:\users\admin\appdata\roaming\nvm and
NVM_SYMLINK which linked to c:\program files\nodejs

i could access npm because c:\program files\nodejs was pointing to my current version of node (eg. C:\Users\admin\AppData\Roaming\nvm\v10.10.0)

[westerdaled]

I was getting this issue but realised this hadn't run this sucessfully
nvm install 8.12.0

Downloading node.js version 8.12.0 (64-bit)...
Complete
Downloading npm version 6.4.1... Download -failed. Rolling Back.

I think this explains the path not set. Anyway installed nvm 1.17 and successfully run the above - it adds these env vars which get appended to the path env var

NVM_HOME=C:\Users\danie\AppData\Roaming\nvm
NVM_SYMLINK=C:\Program Files\nodejs

npm is seen by the path and I stop getting the error mentioned in this thread
λ npm version
{ npm: '6.4.1',
.....

[westerdaled]

I thought I would repeat the above on the laptop supplied by my client

1. installed the last verison of NVM4W installer (1.17.4)

2. set the proxy url

nvm proxy myclientproxy.com:xxxx

λ nvm install 8.12.0
Downloading node.js version 8.12.0 (64-bit)...
Complete
Downloading npm version 6.4.1... Download failed. Rolling Back.
Rollback failed. remove C:\Users\Daniel\AppData\Roaming\nvm\temp\npm-v6.4.1.zip: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
Could not download npm for node v8.12.0.
Please visit https://github.com/npm/cli/releases/tag/v6.4.1 to download npm.
It should be extracted to C:\Users\Daniel\AppData\Roaming\nvm\v8.12.0

Any advice on how resolve this or perform a manual install.

[ismailkattakath]

I had Nodist installed prior to nvm-windows. It left a .npmrc file under home directory (%userprofile%). I had to remove it and try nvm use command again to get everything right.

[earthbound19]

I don't know that my path had anything incorrect or missing, but re @ismailkattakath's solution, I also had extra .npmrc files laying around (in two places), and deleting them and attemting an npm install buzzphraze -g command worked and installed the package in the right place. Before this it was maddeningly creating a c\blar\mcblar\ folder structure in my drive root (in Windows).

Edit: on windows 7. For which the extras installs fails (and I got chocolatey installed through manual wrangling) because it is coded for powershell 1 but chocolately now requires TLS2 and powershell 5 to install. I wonder if the extras installs failures created .npmrc files in the wrong places.

[phaniva]

It appears nvm places commands in C:\Program Files (x86)\Nodist\bin. Adding that to path solved the issue for me. May be nvm installer can add that dir to the path

[AMDphreak]

@coreybutler This problem is still unfixed. I experienced this on nvm 1.1.9 on Windows 11, after using nvm to install Nodejs 18.7.0. It was not previously installed. The nvm list command returned empty until I installed Node with nvm.