Does not put node on path in Windows PowerShell?

[IanVS]

I've followed the instructions on the node.js installation page for windows, but node is not available.

PS C:\Windows\system32> fnm install 22
Installing ←[36mNode v22.13.1←[0m (x64)
←[1;33mwarning:←[0m Version already installed at "C:\\Users\\ianvs\\AppData\\Roaming\\fnm\\node-versions\\v22.13.1"
PS C:\Windows\system32> node -v
node : The term 'node' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check
the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ node -v
+ ~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (node:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Am I missing something?

(I am using Windows 11 in Parallels from my mac, in case that matters)

And yes, I closed and re-opened the shell several times, and also tried running as administrator.

[futurist]

+1 for this issue

[devKarin]

+1 for this issue

On Windows 11,with Windows PowerShell 5.1, on Windows 11 with PowerShell 7.5.0.

[Evansch0]

+1

[IanVS]

Y'all, just add thumbs to the original issue above.

[thnhan1]

As a good developer you should using stackoverflow > github issue.

[Schniz]

Well, we have e2e tests that ensure that PowerShell works reliably, so let's try to debug what's wrong in the setup. Setting up is unfortunately not that easy as I would want it to.

can you share the PATH env var? I don't remember the steps to do it on PowerShell but maybe you'll be able to translate what I want to do from Bash to PowerShell:

$ echo $PATH
# will show us whether you have FNM in the PATH env var

$ env | grep FNM_
will print out the fnm configuration coming from `fnm env`

$ ls $FNM_MULTISHELL_PATH
# here you will see the currently used Node.js

[IanVS]

@Schniz thanks, is this useful?

PS C:\Windows\system32> fnm install 22
Installing ←[36mNode v22.14.0←[0m (x64)
00:00:05 ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 33.29 MiB/33.29 MiB (6.02 MiB/s, 0s)
PS C:\Windows\system32> fnm env
$env:PATH = "C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\fnm_multishells\536_1740402936471;C:\Program Files\Parallels\Parallels Tools\Applications;C:\Python313\Scripts\;C:\Python313\;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\Go\bin;C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files\nodejs\;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop\bin;C:\Users\ianvs\go\bin;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Links;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Packages\Schniz.fnm_Microsoft.Winget.Source_8wekyb3d8bbwe;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Roaming\npm"
$env:FNM_MULTISHELL_PATH = "C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\fnm_multishells\536_1740402936471"
$env:FNM_VERSION_FILE_STRATEGY = "local"
$env:FNM_DIR = "C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Roaming\fnm"
$env:FNM_LOGLEVEL = "info"
$env:FNM_NODE_DIST_MIRROR = "https://nodejs.org/dist"
$env:FNM_COREPACK_ENABLED = "false"
$env:FNM_RESOLVE_ENGINES = "true"
$env:FNM_ARCH = "x64"
PS C:\Windows\system32> ls C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\fnm_multishells\536_1740402936471


    Directory: C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\fnm_multishells\536_1740402936471


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
d-----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM                node_modules
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM          55725 CHANGELOG.md
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM            334 corepack
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM            218 corepack.cmd
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM           3094 install_tools.bat
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM         140396 LICENSE
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM       83344536 node.exe
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM            702 nodevars.bat
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM           2073 npm
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM            538 npm.cmd
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM            795 npm.ps1
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM           2073 npx
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM            538 npx.cmd
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM            795 npx.ps1
-a----         2/24/2025   8:15 AM          40660 README.md


PS C:\Windows\system32> node -v
node : The term 'node' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the
name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ node -v
+ ~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (node:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

One thing I notice, is that when I log out all of the env vars using just $env, then the FNM_ vars are not shown. And this is the equivalent of grepping for them, as far as I can tell (I'm not a Windows developer either):

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-ChildItem Env: | Where-Object { $_.Name -Contains 'FNM_' }
PS C:\Windows\system32>

And when I run $env:PATH I see something slightly different from above as well:

PS C:\Windows\system32> $env:PATH
C:\Program Files\Parallels\Parallels Tools\Applications;C:\Python313\Scripts\;C:\Python313\;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\Go\bin;C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files\nodejs\;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop\bin;C:\Users\ianvs\go\bin;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Links;C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Packages\Schniz.fnm_Microsoft.Winget.Source_8wekyb3d8bbwe;

Note, there is no C:\Users\ianvs\AppData\Local\fnm_multishells\536_1740402936471;

[18964154265]

At first I also encountered the same problem and I tried adding path of node.exe to os path and solved. However, I could not solve the same for npm.

[thnhan1]

Everyone starts from zero, but it's wonderful if you know how to use StackOverflow instead of GitHub Issues.

Solution in Stackoverflow
Result:

[IanVS]

Thanks for the condescension, but this solution workaround is temporary and does not persist when opening another PowerShell terminal.

There are docs for adding some lines to the profile to achieve completions (it's at least under the "##Completions" heading). Maybe that step is required for using fnm at all with PowerShell? If so, it seems like it should be mentioned higher in the installation steps, and also included in the instructions in https://nodejs.org/en/download.

By creating an issue, I'm alerting the maintainer that there is a problem, or at the very least some friction, which users are experiencing that they can choose to then address or not.

[Schniz]

@IanVS the fnm env result contains the multishell path. Did you set up the environment correctly by evaluating the result of fnm env?

[IanVS]

@Schniz I followed the instructions on the node.js download page. I see now that the readme includes links to "set up your shell", but that points to the "Completions" section, which I don't care too much about.

[GregAtkinson72]

I had to install the latest PowerShell as well as edit my profile to get it to work. Here's the steps I followed:

Open powershell

#Search for the latest powershell installation
winget search Microsoft.PowerShell

#Install the latest powershell
winget install --id Microsoft.PowerShell --source winget

Watch for a separate popup window outside of powershell and grant permission for the installation to proceed. Once you've done that, go back to powershell.

#Create a profile
if (-not (Test-Path $profile)) { New-Item $profile -Force }

#Edit your profile
Invoke-Item $profile

A text editor will open up. Add the following line to the text editor and save and exit.
fnm env --use-on-cd --shell powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

Exit powershell and go back in to powershell to reload the profile.

# Download and install fnm:
winget install Schniz.fnm

Exit powershell and go back in to powershell to reload the path.

# Download and install Node.js:
fnm install 22

# Verify the Node.js version:
node -v # Should print "v22.14.0".

# Verify npm version:
npm -v # Should print "10.9.2".

[hunterashner]

I had to install the latest PowerShell as well as edit my profile to get it to work. Here's the steps I followed:

Open powershell

#Search for the latest powershell installation
winget search Microsoft.PowerShell

#Install the latest powershell
winget install --id Microsoft.PowerShell --source winget

Watch for a separate popup window outside of powershell and grant permission for the installation to proceed. Once you've done that, go back to powershell.

#Create a profile
if (-not (Test-Path $profile)) { New-Item $profile -Force }

#Edit your profile
Invoke-Item $profile

A text editor will open up. Add the following line to the text editor and save and exit. fnm env --use-on-cd --shell powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

Exit powershell and go back in to powershell to reload the profile.

# Download and install fnm:
winget install Schniz.fnm

Exit powershell and go back in to powershell to reload the path.

# Download and install Node.js:
fnm install 22

# Verify the Node.js version:
node -v # Should print "v22.14.0".

# Verify npm version:
npm -v # Should print "10.9.2".

These steps worked for me, but I had to run powershell as admin and allow the execution of remote scripts with the following command before the powershell profile would reload.

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

I then ran the previous command directly from powershell
fnm env --use-on-cd --shell powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

Then node and npm were both added to my PATH. Hope this helps.