Npm install fails in node-gyp in Windows WSL2

I had an older app and npm install failed in the node-gyp step. There were several steps I took to solve this issue.action-area

Use Visual Studio 2022 tools

You may have to change configuration to point to the VS installation you have or install the tools .

node-gyp configure --msvs_version=2022 worked for me after running the VS installer modify.

Possible Error

I was getting this error until I followed the instructions in the node-gyp message below and installed the Visual Studio “Desktop development with C++” workload.

gyp ERR! find VS msvs_version was set from command line or npm config        
gyp ERR! find VS - looking for Visual Studio version 2022
gyp ERR! find VS VCINSTALLDIR not set, not running in VS Command Prompt      
gyp ERR! find VS checking VS2022 (17.5.33424.131) found at:
gyp ERR! find VS "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Professional"
gyp ERR! find VS - found "Visual Studio C++ core features"
gyp ERR! find VS - found VC++ toolset: v143
gyp ERR! find VS - missing any Windows SDK
gyp ERR! find VS could not find a version of Visual Studio 2017 or newer to use
gyp ERR! find VS looking for Visual Studio 2015
gyp ERR! find VS - not found
gyp ERR! find VS not looking for VS2013 as it is only supported up to Node.js 8
gyp ERR! find VS
gyp ERR! find VS valid versions for msvs_version:
gyp ERR! find VS
gyp ERR! find VS **************************************************************
gyp ERR! find VS You need to install the latest version of Visual Studio
gyp ERR! find VS including the "Desktop development with C++" workload.
gyp ERR! find VS For more information consult the documentation at:
gyp ERR! find VS https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp#on-windows
gyp ERR! find VS **************************************************************

Install Python3 and Set the environment

You also need Python3 installed. In WSL, check if it’s there with which python3, echo $Python. If the env variable isn’t set then add export PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3 to the ~/.bashrc file.

make sure you node and npm versions are correct

Then I used nvm to update node. I needed NodeJs lts/fermium ( https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66878986/npm-err-code-127-gyp-err-stack-error-command-failed#:~:text=The%20issue%20is%20that%20node-gyp%20tries%20to%20build,with%20the%20current%20Node%20version%20on%20your%20system.) , the newer versions failed. You can install and use multiple Node versions using nvm.

nvm install lts/fermium

nvm use lts/fermium (you may need to run every time you start up WSL) nvm alias default lts/fermium should persist it

npm install

Success!

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