Node is a cross-platform application development framework that has gained popularity among developers. In 2020, with never-ceasing demands for cross-platform applications, node is still the most popular framework. So, what better things to do than setting up your development environment now?

Although a node development environment can be set up on Windows, Linux, and Mac systems, in this article, we will install node, npm, visual studio code, and git on a Windows platform. We should be able to set up on Windows 7, 8, and 10 without a problem. Also, to better manage our software installations, we are going to use the software package manager chocolatey.

Software package managers allow us to install, uninstall, and update software packages with ease.

To install chocolatey, follow the steps at https://chocolatey.org/install or run powershell as an administrator then copy and paste the following dcommand:

>Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

Now that you've installed chocolatey, let's install the rest of the software packages.

Node and NPM

Make sure you're still running powershell as administrator then run the folowing command:

>choco install nodejs

When node installation is complete, powershell requires a reload to recognize the newly installed software packages. So, close the powershell terminal and open it again. This time, it doesn't need to be run as an administrator. Let's check that node has been installed by checking its version.

On the powershell terminal, type the following command and you should see the corresponding output.

>node -v

v12.14.1

NPM was installed automatically, when we intalled node. So, to check its version, type the following command:

>npm -v

6.13.4

Visual Studio Code

So far, so good. Now, we need to install visual studio code.

>choco install vscode

Let's check its version.

>code -v

1.14.1

Git

And finally, let's install git to keep track of different versions of our future projects.

>choco install git

Check its version.

>git --version

git version 2.19.2.windows.1

That's it pancit! Now, we can start creating node projects.