How can I change the cache path for npm (or completely disable the cache) on Windows?

You can change npm cache folder using the npm command line. (see https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v6/using-npm/config#cache)

So you might want to try this command :

> npm config set cache C:\Devel\nodejs\npm-cache --global 

You can also set an environment variable with export npm_config_cache=/path/to/cache (Unix) or set npm_config_cache=C:\path\to\cache (Win) as an alternative to npm config set (this is true for all config options in npm).

For anyone using docker you can add the env var at runtime with:

docker run -e npm_config_cache=/path/to/cache mydockerimage:tag

You can also do following:

For having cache path as you wish, for a single package while installing it:

npm install packageName --cache path/to/some/folder

For having cache path as you wish, for all the packages in package.json:

Just be in the directory where package.json is as usual and do

npm install --cache path/to/some/folder

You may not find this in npm documentation but i have tried it with npm 6 and it works. Looks like it works since npm 5 [Refer: How to specify cache folder in npm5 on install command?