how to install packages for node.js on windows without package manager?

Question

Normally when I go to node js website there is only one exe file to download. And I don't need to install many packages only one or two, so I don't need a manager. For Example I'm interested in it: https://npmjs.org/package/node-ffi - And what I'm supposed to do with that, download it and put it zipped in the same folder than node.exe ? Do it install creatin some registry keys or what ? Do I must have some type of compiler or git ?

Answer 1

Even though you need node-ffi I recommend that you use npm as you will find it easier to install other packages later and to handle upgrades to existing packages.

That being said to install node-ffi It seems like you will need to compile C++ code which means that it will be considerably easier (assuming you have setup your build tools compile C++ on Windows) then to install node-ffi by hand .

If you install the Node via the Windows installer you will get npm which is the official way to install packages.

Answer 2

I wouldn't recommend you try to manage packages manually. You'll find it very cumbersome if you use more than a couple (and many packages will have other package dependencies that you'll need to locate correctly). If you want to have a portable install of NPM, you'll need to grab the source code for NPM from its Github repository (and you can just grab the zip download if you want):

https://github.com/isaacs/npm

Then, you should be able to use the npm.cmd file in the folder

\bin\npm.cmd 

for NPM functionality. You might want to add it (and node.exe ) to your environment path.