Node packages not building on Windows 8.1 - Missing Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props

Question

NPM packages are not building on Windows 8.1 - failing with following error,

error MSB4019: The imported project \"C:\\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props\" was not fo

Answer 1

Finally Microsoft is providing much better solution to VS.

Answer 2

A quick note for people who installed:

1. Visual Studio 2012 (Express)

2. MSBuild 2012

with the issue of:

1. MSBuild loads Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props

2. MSBuild cannot load Microsoft.Cpp.props

The solution is here: set parameter of MSBuild: /property:VCTargetsPath="C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V110"

Answer 3

The quick fix for me was this:

set VCTargetsPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120
npm install

Answer 4

This is the same issue as described here

NPM native builds with only Visual Studio 2013 installed

If you have a version of VS2013 installed set this environment variable before running the npm command:

set GYP_MSVS_VERSION=2013

or for VS2012

set GYP_MSVS_VERSION=2012 

background reading: https://github.com/Automattic/socket.io/issues/1151

Answer 5

Setting the following fixed the problem for me

/property:VCTargetsPath="C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120

As mentioned on this forum

Answer 6

So it is 2.47am - figured it out.

Although the node-gyp site seems to suggest using Visual Studio 2010 or 2012, instead for Windows 8.1, install Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop as discussed in this issue.