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Common Issues

Corey Butler edited this page Jul 28, 2016 · 58 revisions

There are a couple of common issues folks run into. I try to fix them/accept PR's when possible, but there are a few things I've simply held off on. Why? I'm building a new version that's cross-platform compatible, and I'm trying to get infrastructure setup for things like auto-update.

In the meantime, here are some common issues and workarounds:

Spaces in pathnames/installation root

Some environments aren't picking up on space-escaping. If you're having problems with Windows recognizing NVM4W, try installing it on a path with no spaces, like C:\nvm. The same situation is relevant for the symlink path, so you may want to use something other than C:\Program Files\nodejs for the symlink root.

Permissions

Windows requires elevated administrative privileges to perform specific functions or use special directories. For example, administrative privileges are required to write to anything in C:\Program Files. Elevated permissions are required to use Windows mklink command, which is responsible for the nvm use command.

There is no way around this, because it's a security feature of the operating system. Every program has to deal with this. Remember that NVM4W is basically an installer, so it needs installer-like permissions.

Several people have complained about this, and I'm sorry... but I'm not the guy to talk to about that. Your best bet is to reach out to Microsoft.

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