[solved] Using Visual C++ Build Tools 2015 – standalone C++ tools

[dotnetCarpenter]

[EDIT]

Guide

1 Your OS MUST be Windows
2 Check that python is in your path by writting python --version in the console. If not then
2.1 Download python 2.7 (I recommend chocolatey (choco install python2 -y))
3. Are you on Windows 7? Then follow the rest of 3.x
3.1 Check that you have .NET 4.5.1+ installed. If not then
3.2 Download and install .NET 4.5.1 (.NET 4.5.2 will also work just fine)
4 Download Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools 2015 Technical Preview
4.1 Install the Windows 8.1 SDK if you haven't already. Note; I recently updated to Windows 10 and had to install the Windows 10 SDK before node-gyp would successfully build.
5 Set the npm config variable msvs_version to 2015: npm config -g set msvs_version 2015
6 Do npm i in what-ever project with node-gyp as a dependency without seeing weird error messages 👍

Tested with node 5.0.0+ and npm 3.3.6

thanks to @mousetraps

I happily noticed that MS provides a standalone c++ compiler. I will try to use it with node-gyp (via utf-8-validate) and report my findings here.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2015/11/02/announcing-visual-c-build-tools-2015-standalone-c-tools-for-build-environments.aspx

[dotnetCarpenter]

Adding C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\Bin to my PATH yields no result. Still getting:

MSBUILD : error MSB3428: Could not load the Visual C++ component "VCBuild.exe". To fix this, 1) install the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK, 2) install Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or 3) add the location o f the component to the system path if it is installed elsewhere.  [C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\firefund-cli\node_modules\utf-8-validate\build\binding.sln]
gyp ERR! build error
gyp ERR! stack Error: `msbuild` 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:270:23)
gyp ERR! stack     at emitTwo (events.js:87:13)
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:172:7)
gyp ERR! stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:200:12)
gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 6.1.7601
gyp ERR! command "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\node_modules\\node-gyp\\bin\\node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\firefund-cli\node_modules\utf-8-validate
gyp ERR! node -v v5.0.0
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.0.3
gyp ERR! not ok
npm WARN install:utf-8-validate utf-8-validate@1.2.1 install: `node-gyp rebuild`
npm WARN install:utf-8-validate Exit status 1

Need to tell node-gyp to use MSBuild.exe

[mousetraps]

@dotnetCarpenter hey, thanks for trying it out! Did you end up getting it working? Is there anything missing from these steps? #629 (comment)

[dotnetCarpenter]

thx @mousetraps. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to tell node-gyp to use MSBuild.exe.

You comment prompted me to try just compiling a project via npm install.
I've set npm config set msvs_version 2015 --global but didn't set python as python --version already gives me 2.7.10.

I saw that you successfully compiled utf-8-validate so I cloned that repo and did npm i. The result was not very encouraging:
c:\users\dotnet\.node-gyp\5.0.0\include\node\uv-win.h(32): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'winsock2.h': No such file or directory [C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\utf-8-validate\b uild\validation.vcxproj]

Got .Net 4.5.2 : Release DWORD 5cbf5 (379893)

Entire output:

> utf-8-validate@1.2.1 install C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\utf-8-validate
> node-gyp rebuild


C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\utf-8-validate {git}
{lamb} if not defined npm_config_node_gyp (node "C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\node-gyp-bin\\..\..\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" rebuild )  else (node  rebuild )
Building the projects in this solution one at a time. To enable parallel build, please add the "/m" switch.
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets(366,5): warning MSB8003: Could not find WindowsSDKDir variable from the registry.  TargetFrameworkVersion or Platfo rmToolset may be set to an invalid version number. [C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\utf-8-validate\build\validation.vcxproj]
  validation.cc
c:\users\dotnet\.node-gyp\5.0.0\include\node\uv-win.h(32): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'winsock2.h': No such file or directory [C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\utf-8-validate\b uild\validation.vcxproj]
gyp ERR! build error
gyp ERR! stack Error: `C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\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:270:23)
gyp ERR! stack     at emitTwo (events.js:87:13)
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:172:7)
gyp ERR! stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:200:12)
gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 6.1.7601
gyp ERR! command "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\node_modules\\node-gyp\\bin\\node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\utf-8-validate
gyp ERR! node -v v5.0.0
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.0.3
gyp ERR! not ok

npm ERR! Windows_NT 6.1.7601
npm ERR! argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "i"
npm ERR! node v5.0.0
npm ERR! npm  v3.3.6
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! utf-8-validate@1.2.1 install: `node-gyp rebuild`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the utf-8-validate@1.2.1 install script 'node-gyp rebuild'.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the utf-8-validate 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 utf-8-validate
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\utf-8-validate\npm-debug.log

[mousetraps]

Did you install the Windows sdk too when installing the build tools (this should be the default)? I believe that's where winsock2.h comes from.

[dotnetCarpenter]

I get a similar errors when building ws.

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets(366,5): warning MSB8003: Could not find WindowsSDKDir variable from the registry.  TargetFrameworkVersion or Platfo rmToolset may be set to an invalid version number. [C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\ws\node_modules\bufferutil\build\bufferutil.vcxproj]
  bufferutil.cc
c:\users\dotnet\.node-gyp\5.0.0\include\node\uv-win.h(32): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'winsock2.h': No such file or directory [C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\ws\node_modules\ bufferutil\build\bufferutil.vcxproj]
gyp ERR! build error
gyp ERR! stack Error: `C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\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:270:23)

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets(366,5): warning MSB8003: Could not find WindowsSDKDir variable from the registry.  TargetFrameworkVersion or Platfo rmToolset may be set to an invalid version number. [C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\ws\node_modules\utf-8-validate\build\validation.vcxproj]
  validation.cc
c:\users\dotnet\.node-gyp\5.0.0\include\node\uv-win.h(32): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'winsock2.h': No such file or directory [C:\Users\dotnet\Projects\playground\ws\node_modules\ utf-8-validate\build\validation.vcxproj]
gyp ERR! build error
gyp ERR! stack Error: `C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\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:270:23)

[mousetraps]

@dotnetCarpenter Even after installing the Windows sdk?

[dotnetCarpenter]

Should I install the Windows 8.1 SDK with the Build Tools installer or the Windows 7 SDK when I'm on Windows 7?

Unfortunately I can not update to Windows 10 due to an unknown installation error when upgrading.

[dotnetCarpenter]

Hmm.. I somehow thought I could get things compiling without a Windows SDK but in the end I installed Windows 8.1 SDK via the installer and things seems to be working. 🎉

OS: Windows7
Node: 5.0.0
Npm: 3.3.6

[rickmed]

@dotnetCarpenter
Hi. Installed the Build Tools 2015 provided by @mousetraps, followed instructions, tried to install selenium-webdriver (node-gyp dependant) and got the error below. Any ideas? (nodejs 4.2.2, npm 3.4, windows 10x64)
Thank you!

C:\Users\rickm\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\selenium-webdriver\node_modules\utf-8-validate>if not defined npm_config_node_gyp (node "C:\Users\rickm\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm\bin\node-gyp-bin....\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" rebuild ) else (node rebuild )
Building the projects in this solution one at a time. To enable parallel build, please add the "/m" switch.
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets(366,5): warning MSB8003: Could not fi
nd WindowsSDKDir variable from the registry. TargetFrameworkVersion or PlatformToolset may be set to an invalid versio
n number. [C:\Users\rickm\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\selenium-webdriver\node_modules\utf-8-validate\build\validat
ion.vcxproj]
validation.cc
c:\users\rickm.node-gyp\4.2.2\include\node\uv-win.h(32): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'winsock2.h': No
such file or directory [C:\Users\rickm\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\selenium-webdriver\node_modules\utf-8-validate
\build\validation.vcxproj]
gyp ERR! build error
gyp ERR! stack Error: C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\msbuild.exe failed with exit code: 1
gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.onExit (C:\Users\rickm\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\lib\build.js:270:23)
gyp ERR! stack at emitTwo (events.js:87:13)
gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:172:7)
gyp ERR! stack at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:200:12)
gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 10.0.10240
gyp ERR! command "C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe" "C:\Users\rickm\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd C:\Users\rickm\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\selenium-webdriver\node_modules\utf-8-validate
gyp ERR! node -v v4.2.2
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.0.3
gyp ERR! not ok
npm WARN install:utf-8-validate@1.2.1 utf-8-validate@1.2.1 install: node-gyp rebuild
npm WARN install:utf-8-validate@1.2.1 Exit status 1

[dotnetCarpenter]

warning MSB8003: Could not find WindowsSDKDir variable from the registry.

Looks like you're missing the Windows 10 SDK, since you are on Windows 10. I think you can uninstall Windows SDK 8.1. Let me know if it works and I'll update the guide to be more clear.

Also, be sure to:
3.1 Check that you have .NET 4.5.1+ installed. If not then
3.2 Download and install .NET 4.5.1 (.NET 4.5.2 will also work just fine)

[rickmed]

I have installed the windows 10 SDKs but somehow I think it failed to add it to the registry (or something like that), but I don't know how to fix it...

[dotnetCarpenter]

Run the VisualCppBuildTools_Full.exe that you downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49512 and choose Repair.

[rickmed]

@dotnetCarpenter I finally got it working checking BOTH windows 10 SDKs and windows 8 SDK (I'm on win10) when installing the 2015 build tools. It seems that somehow the windows 10 SDKs is built on top of the windows 8 SDKs OR the windows 10 SDKs package has a bug that fails to add the correspondent registry values, and my system is simple using the windows 8 SDKs (when I added it later).

[dotnetCarpenter]

sounds weird. perhaps @mousetraps has an idea to why.