npm install for some packages (sqlite3, socket.io) fail with error MSB8020 on Windows 7

Question

When trying to install some node.js packages (sqlite3 and socket.io in particular) using npm install socket.io on my Windows 7 machine with Visual Studio 2012 (

Answer 1

To get around this on my machine I did this command to install the package:

npm install socket.io --msvs_version=2012

I found the answer here when having the problem with installing sqlite3 and it worked with socket.io as well.

These might be more permanent solutions to fix the problem:

1. Install Visual Studio 2010
2. Updating the npm internal copy to a newer version of node-gyp as described here and here (probably the better option although I didn't get it working but didn't try for too long)