nodejs for Windows does not set a npm global package properly

[lmayorga1980]

We have puppet to provision some windows environments which also install nodejs for windows. We tried to install certain packages like this...

 exec { 'dependo':
    command   => 'npm.cmd install -g [email protected]',
    logoutput => true,
    path      => 'C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs',
    unless    => 'npm.cmd -g ls [email protected] | c:\windows\system32\findstr.exe [email protected]'
  }

  exec { 'plato' :
    command   => 'npm.cmd install -g [email protected]',
    logoutput => true,
    path      => 'C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs',
    unless    => 'npm.cmd -g ls [email protected] | c:\windows\system32\findstr.exe [email protected]'
  }

  exec { 'bower' :
    command   => 'npm.cmd install -g [email protected]',
    logoutput => true,
    path      => 'C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs',
    unless    => 'npm.cmd -g ls [email protected] | c:\windows\system32\findstr.exe [email protected]'
  }

Since the Puppet Windows Service runs under the SYSTEM account when we try to invoke "lets say bower from the command line logged as a different user" we have errors complaining about command not found.

If we run the same Puppet Windows Service with the same user then everything works fine.

It seems that the packages go to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\npm and sets a USER Environment Variable PATH. When executed as the local SYSTEM account i was not able to find the local path of the bower.cmd.

[litmit]

See also #4360

[wonderdogone]

This has been a problem for awhile. I install everything local to run applications . This is bad when middle tier IT is handed the projects and can't install things correctly. Many enterprise run on windows servers (yuck I know), but they do. If the IT folks complain it gives upper management the excuse to not use node even if our development team want to and know why we should.

[lmayorga1980]

Any news about this issue?

[othiym23]

I believe this is related to #8141.