How do I update npm on Windows?

We at Microsoft Open Source wrote a small tool to automate the process outlined above. You can find it here or just install and run it by executing the following in an elevated command prompt / PowerShell:

npm install -g npm-windows-upgrade
npm-windows-upgrade

So, TL;DR; this worked:

1. Uninstall node

2. From a command prompt, run where npm

3. If you had npm installed via chocolatey, you'll see a path like C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin\npm.exe - DELETE it!
4. Now install NodeJS using the appropriate MSI from https://nodejs.org/en/download/
5. In your favourite shell, type npm --version - this should now echo the version of NPM that came with NodeJS (at the time of this writing, that version is 3.10.10)

This is what worked for me (goofy me!) I had (age ago) installed npm via chocolatey, which created a chocolatey initiated npm.exe in C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin\npm.exe. This was npm version 1.4.9 and wouldn't update no matter what one did including uninstall and reinstall NodeJs.

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EDIT: Better way to install node and npm

As of today (27/06/2017), the best way to install and manage node and npm is to install nvm (Node Version Manager) as explained here: https://github.com/coreybutler/nvm-windows. Once you have nvm, installing any node version is super easy:

1. Open your favourite console (CMD, Cmder, PowerShell)
2. Type nvm install 6.10.2 (to install node version 6.10.2)
3. To see the currently active version, type nvm list. This prints something like below:

  6.9.3   
* 6.9.2 (Currently using 64-bit executable)
  6.9.1
  6.10.2

There May be many ways to update your npm in Windows

Way 1

1. Open you power shell as Administrator and run following commands step by step.
2. Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser -Force
3. npm install -g npm-windows-upgrade
4. npm-windows-upgrade
5. Here you can select your preferred version of npm
6. Ready to go !

Way 2

1. You can simply upgrade to the latest npm version with following command
2. npm install npm@latest -g
3. or if you want a specific version of npm simply run
4. npm install npm@{version} -g for example npm install [email protected] -g

Now simply run npm --version or npm -v to know your current version of npm

3.3.12 is my preferred version of npm that best suits for approximately every package.

You need to follow the Windows upgrade instructions ( https://docs.npmjs.com/try-the-latest-stable-version-of-npm )

tl;dr - npm -g install npm does work, but the old version of npm is still in your PATH.

To fix this, do one of these:

Option 2: remove both of

C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\npm

C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\npm.cmd

Or

Option 3: Open cmd.exe as administrator, navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs and then run the installation without -g:

npm install npm@latest

*There is an npm package that automate this Option 3:

npm install -g npm-win-upgrade