NodeJS - Error installing with NPM

As commented below you may not need to install VS on windows, check this out

https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/issues/629#issuecomment-153196245

UPDATED 02/2016

Some npm plugins need node-gyp to be installed.

However, node-gyp has it's own dependencies (from the github page):

enter image description here

UPDATED 09/2016

If you're using Windows you can now install all node-gyp dependencies with single command (NOTE: Run As Admin in Windows PowerShell):

 $ npm install --global --production windows-build-tools

and then install the package

 $ npm install --global node-gyp

UPDATED 06/2018

https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/issues/809#issuecomment-155019383

Delete your $HOME/.node-gyp directory and try again.

See full documentation here: node-gyp

Make sure you have all the required software to run node-gyp:

https://github.com/TooTallNate/node-gyp

You can configure version of Visual Studio used by node-gyp via an environment variable so you can avoid having to set the --msvs_version=2012 property every time you do an npm install.

Examples:

set GYP_MSVS_VERSION=2012 for Visual Studio 2012
set GYP_MSVS_VERSION=2013e (the 'e' stands for FREE 'express edition')

For the full list see - https://github.com/joyent/node/blob/v0.10.29/tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/MSVSVersion.py#L209-294

This is still painful for Windows users of NodeJS as it assumes you have a copy of Visual Studio installed and many end users will never have this. So I'm lobbying Joyent to the encourage them to include web sockets as part of CORE node and also to possible ship a GNU gcc compiler as part of NodeJS install so we can permanently fix this problem.

Feel free to add your vote at:

https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/8005#issuecomment-50545326

I encountered the issue with the error:

gyp ERR! configure error

gyp ERR! stack Error: Can't find Python executable "python", you can set the PYTHON env variable.

Here is what I was doing and what finally worked.

Disclaimer: I am just getting my hands into Node, Angular after many years in the Java, Linux world among others...

Environment Description: Windows 8.1 64-bit; Cygwin; cygwin bash shell

Command used that led to error: npm install -g karma

Error: gyp ERR! configure error gyp ERR! stack Error: Can't find Python executable "python", you can set the PYT HON env variable.

Discovery: 'which python' on bash shell clearly shows '/usr/bin/python'. Now that is annoying!

Solution: This is only applicable to those using the environment similar to what I have, i.e. using cygwin and bash shell. Hope it helps in other environments as well but keep in mind that your kettle of tea may look a little different than mine.

Firstly, need to set the $PYTHON shell env variable in .bashrc using the explicit windows path to the python executable and not the unix like root path (/usr/bin) used by cygwin.
Secondly, and this one took a lot of trial/error and here's the gotcha! Cygwin installs python under /usr/bin (which is really a mirror of /bin on windows) with the version, i.e. (in my system) /usr/bin/python2.7.exe and then adds a link /usr/bin/python --> python2.7.exe. The problem is that gyp cannot follow this link and keeps giving the annoying error that it cannot find python even though you can find it just fine from the shell command line.
With the above background now add the following line to your .bashrc

export PYTHON="C:/cygwin64/bin/python2.7.exe (or whatever is the version on your system)"