node-gyp: Problems using node-gyp

I am currently working on a Win7-64 (Ultimate) machine with the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 installed. I consistently have difficulty installing nodejs modules that interest me. Node-gyp seems to be the one package that is involved. All superficial indicators seem to say that nodejs, npm, and node-gyp are installed correctly.

The most obvious odd thing I see is the line:

LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file ‘C:\Users\wittend.node-gyp\0.10.1\node.lib’

By default, there is no copy of node.lib in 'C:\Users\wittend.node-gyp\0.10.1'. There are copies in three folders beneath this, in ia32, x64, and Release. I gather there may be a missing environment variable that determines the correct subfolder to look in.

But Windows, when faced with a path with two consecutive backslashes, sometimes reads them as a single backslash. So windows looks for node.lib in C:\Users\wittend.node-gyp\0.10.1\node.lib. This happened for me with node-gyp 1.10.0, so I moved a copy of node.lib from the \Release folder up a level in that tree. But the problem came back when node-gyp got updated. I am not at all certain that is the correct version of the library to use. And if there is an unset environment variable, what is it?

A full typical example of the output I get is this:

C:\Users\wittend\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\ftdi>node “C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\node-gyp-bin.…\node_m odules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js” rebuild C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\include\xlocale(342): warning C4530: C++ exception handler used, but unwind s emantics are not enabled. Specify /EHsc C:\Users\wittend.node-gyp\0.10.1\deps\v8\include\v8.h(184): warning C4506: no definition for inline function ‘v8::Persistent<T> v8 ::Persistent<T>::New(v8::Handle<T>)’ C:\Users\wittend.node-gyp\0.10.1\deps\v8\include\v8.h(184): warning C4506: no definition for inline function ‘v8::Persistent<T> v8 ::Persistent<T>::New(v8::Handle<T>)’ C:\Users\wittend.node-gyp\0.10.1\deps\v8\include\v8.h(179): warning C4506: no definition for inline function ‘v8::Persistent<T> v8 ::Persistent<T>::New(v8::Handle<T>)’ LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file ‘C:\Users\wittend.node-gyp\0.10.1\node.lib’ Project : warning PRJ0018: The following environment variables were not found: gyp ERR! build error gyp ERR! stack Error: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v3.5\msbuild.exe failed with exit code: 1 gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.onExit (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\lib\build.js:256:23) gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:98:17) gyp ERR! stack at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:754:12) gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 6.1.7601 gyp ERR! command “node” "C:\Program

Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" “rebuild” gyp ERR! cwd C:\Users\wittend\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\ftdi gyp ERR! node -v v0.10.1 gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v0.8.5 gyp ERR! not ok npm ERR! ftdi@1.0.0 preinstall: node-gyp rebuild npm ERR! cmd "/c" "node-gyp rebuild" failed with 1 npm ERR! npm ERR! Failed at the ftdi@1.0.0 preinstall script. npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the ftdi package, npm ERR! not with npm itself. npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system: npm ERR! node-gyp rebuild npm ERR! You can get their info via: npm ERR! npm owner ls ftdi npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! System Windows_NT 6.1.7601 npm ERR! command “C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe” “C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js” “-g” “insta ll” “ftdi” npm ERR! cwd D:\Projects\code\web-csg npm ERR! node -v v0.10.1 npm ERR! npm -v 1.2.15 npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE npm ERR! npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in: npm ERR! D:\Projects\code\web-csg\npm-debug.log npm ERR! not ok code 0 D:\Projects\code\web-csg>

Thanks,

Dave