'npm' is not recognized as internal or external command, operable program or batch file

Question

I am completely new to nodejs. I am trying to get nodejs to work on my Windows 2008 box in order to install Karma which I would use for TDDing my AngularJs code. I have done the following steps so far

1. Install using Chocolatey ==> npm is not recognised
2. Install using 64-bit nodejs installer from nodejs.org ==> npm is not recognised
3. At this stage, running where npm gives me c:\User\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\npm which has nothing in it
4. I figure out that nodejs is installed in C:\Program Files\nodejs. Opening a command prompt in this directory makes npm work fine.
5. So I added C:\Program Files\nodejs to PATH only to get the same error again that npm is not recognized
6. One of the github issues on nodejs repository says that I need to restart the machine and it would fix. But that has not helped so far
7. I do see a Node.js icon in my Start -> Programms mennu which takes me to nodejs console but not sure what to do with that.

Have I missed any important step in the process?

Edit

I figured out that if I open "Nodejs command prompt" from program files, then npm is recognized. How do I make it work on a normal command prompt?

Edit

After node I started facing a similar problem with another application. I posted this question on superuser and as rightly pointed out by the accepted answer, I had an additional quote in my PATH which was causing issues with all the paths added after the quote. I have a feeling that some Chocolatey install adds this troubling quote but I am just not sure which one.

Answer 1

Just add:

;C:\Program Files\nodejs\

To the end of your Path variable on the "User variable" section of the Environment Variables on the System Properties.

After that, reopen your command prompt and type

npm

This should work.

Answer 2

Don't forget to reboot your computer after installing node! That one got me.

Answer 3

To elaborate on Breno's answer... For Windows 7 these steps worked for me:

1. Open the Control Panel (Click the Start button, then click Control Panel)
2. Click User Accounts
3. Click Change my environment variables
4. Select PATH and click the Edit... button
5. At the end of the Variable value, add ;C:\Program Files\nodejs
6. Click Ok on the "Edit User Variable" window, then click Ok on the "Environment Variables" window
7. Start a command prompt window (Start button, then type cmd into the search and hit enter)
8. At the prompt (C:\>) type npm and hit enter; you should now see some help text (Usage: npm <command> etc.) rather than "npm is not recognized..."

Now you can start using npm!

Answer 4

For Windows users: A picture tells a thousand words

Reference: npm not recognized as internal or external command (Note: this is my own blog)

Answer 5

If you are using VS Code, close VS code and open again.

I tried closing Terminal and then opening new Terminal but it didn't work.

Re-Starting VS Code works!

Answer 6

Don't forget to run cmd as admin.

Answer 7

I had the same problem described by Ashu, but in addition to that, the PATH entry for nodejs was terminated by a backslash:

C:\Program Files\nodejs\

I also had to remove that final backslash in order to have it work.

Answer 8

Just Download and Install Node.js from here https://nodejs.org/en/

If you run the downloaded file and install it, they will automatically configure for your system

You don't need any other configurations anymore, now you can use the npm command anywhere

---

If the Nodejs is successfully installed and still displays the message like this:

'npm' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Follow the steps below for Windows users:

1. Go to My Computer Properties
2. Click Advanced System Setting from the Left bar of a window.
3. Now you have a System Properties window. Click Advanced
4. Then, Click Environment Variable button
5. Now you have Environment variable window: From System Variable, Select Path
6. Click Edit

7. At the end of the Variable value, add ;C:\Program Files\nodejs\

   Note: If you have installed nodejs on other drives then please act accordingly.

8. Click Ok all the open dialogue box

Very important Note: "Close your Command Prompt And Restart Again" (It's very important because if you didn't restart your command prompt then changes will not be reflected.)

Now you can use the npm command anywhere

Answer 9

I faced the exact same issue and notice that after installing node.js there was a new path entry in the user variable section for PATH with value --> c:\User\\AppData\Roaming\npm. Also the Path entry in the system variable is appended with --> C:\Program Files\nodejs. Now since user variable has preference over system you have two options to fix this. Either delete the path from user variable or correct the right path (C:\Program Files\nodejs). Restart CMD and it should work.

Answer 10

If you're getting this error through a service account like Visual Studio TFS Build controller service or any other background service, make sure you restart the service after installing npm as the new PATH environment settings will not be picked up by those already running processes. I was getting same error through my build service but I had npm installed and running in the console.

Answer 11

You might have already received a response but this might help others since I experienced the same issue recently and this is what I did:

1. Added a path for Powershell. For me, the path was C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0

2. Then, I opened the command prompt with administrative privileges and ran

   @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin

3. Next, choco install nodejs

4. Restart and everything worked fine. Try opening the command prompt without admin privileges and run npm -v

Cheers.

Answer 12

Had the same problem on Windows 8.1 64 bit.
Turns out i get that problem if I start cmd by typing it in the path bar at the top of a folder window
or
when i shift right click in a folder window and then open command prompt from the list.

When I run cmd using Run or Just from the cmd.exe executable it works.

Answer 13

I ran into this issue as well. It turns out Windows doesn't enjoy single quotes on the command line. The culprit was one of my npm scripts. I changed the single quotes to escaped double quotes:

'npm -s run sass-build'

to

\"npm -s run sass-build\"

Answer 14

I'm updating this thread with a new answer because I've found the solution to my miserable situation after not less than a week ...

For those still experiencing the error even though they have their path value set properly, check your pathext variable to have the value (default value in windows 7 +) : .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC

Mine was to set only to : .BAT and changing it solved the problem. I wonder why nobody brought this up ...

Hope this helps!

Answer 15

If everything looks fine. I would advice to check this for PATHEXT .CMD must be added.

Answer 16

I installed nodejs following this AngularJS tutorial. the npm command did work when I open a new cmd window but not in the current one.
So the fix was to close and open a new cmd window.

Answer 17

I ran into this problem the other day on my Windows 7 machine. Problem wasn't my path, but I had to use escaped forward slashes instead of backslashes like this:

"scripts": {
    "script": ".\\bin\\script.sh"
}

Answer 18

If the package is successfully installed and still shows the message "'npm' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

1. Click windows start button.
2. Look for "ALL APPS", you will see Node.js and Node.js Command prompt there.
3. You can run the Node.js Command prompt as administrator and soon as its run it will show the message "Your environment has been set up for using Node.js 6.3.0 (x64) and npm."

and then it works from there...

Answer 19

I installed Node.js and while trying to install Ionic and cordova using this piece of code:

npm install -g cordova ionic

I faced the above error. I added 'C:\Program Files\nodejs' to my Environment Variable 'PATH'. But still was unable to get over this issue. Turned out that my PATH variable was longer than 2048 characters and so I was unable to add the Nodejs path to it. I had to remove the path of another program and add the Nodejs path. Close and reopen the cmd prompt and try to install Ionic again. This worked for me.

Answer 20

for me adding path to PATH didn't do the trick. Run c:\Program Files\nodejs\nodevars.bat instead, it will do the job for you

Answer 21

Well in my case doing testing via Mocha i tried everything just to realize i have to remove single quotes around my test case script tag inside package.json.

I am running mocha test case on all *.test.js files as can see below:

package.json

Before:

 "scripts": {
    "test": "mocha server/**/*.test.js",
    "test-watch": "nodemon --exec 'npm run test'"
  }

After(removing single quotes - npm run test):

 "scripts": {
    "test": "mocha server/**/*.test.js",
    "test-watch": "nodemon --exec npm run test"
  }

Worked for me, just in case someone else also gets stuck on this.

Answer 22

I understand this question is really old and we have many answers, unfortunately, my scenario was different, thus a different solution.

If you started using nvm to manage the node versions after you install the node in your machine, most likely you will be facing the same issue.

I installed a version 10.15.3 and then I had to use another version as there is some tight dependency with one of my projects. Then I decided to install the nvm, while installing it asked, whether I need nvm to manage the version already installed on my machine which is 10.15.3. And yeah, I said Yes hoping that it will take care of that, unfortunately, it didn't.

I was always getting this error no matter I tried many other things mentioned in the other answers here, including setting the path. In the end, to fix that, these are the things I tried.

1. Uninstall the node version installed, for example, nvm uninstall 10.15.3
2. Make sure no other node versions are there, nvm list
3. Then, install the version needed, for example, nvm install 10.15.3. This should give you an output as preceding.

Downloading node.js version 10.15.3 (64-bit)...
Complete
Creating C:\Users\SibeeshVenu\AppData\Roaming\nvm\temp

Downloading npm version 6.4.1... Complete
Installing npm v6.4.1...

Installation complete. If you want to use this version, type

nvm use 10.15.3
PS C:\Users\SibeeshVenu> nvm use 10.15.3
Now using node v10.15.3 (64-bit)

4. Please note that from the above command, the npm is also installed.
5. Now use the version you need, nvm use 10.15.3 and type npm

Answer 23

Check npm config by command:

npm config list

It needs properties: "prefix", global "prefix" and "node bin location".

; userconfig C:\Users\username\.npmrc
cache = "C:\\ProgramData\\npm-cache"
msvs_version = "2015"
prefix = "C:\\ProgramData\\npm"
python = "C:\\Python27\\"
registry = "http://registry.com/api/npm/npm-packages/"

; globalconfig C:\ProgramData\npm\etc\npmrc
cache = "C:\\ProgramData\\npm-cache"
prefix = "C:\\ProgramData\\npm"

; node bin location = C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe
; cwd = C:\WINDOWS\system32

In this case it needs to add these paths to the end of environment variable PATH:

;C:\Program Files\nodejs;C:\ProgramData\npm;

Answer 24

If you used ms build tools to install node the path is here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\BuildTools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\NodeJs

Answer 25

We need to install nodejs and nothing else do we need to do and then simply use command prompt and change directory to the project in which you want to install npm and then use npm install command. It has worked for me.