13.6.0 last officially supported 13.14.0 last installer that just-works 16.6.2 reported working? 16.13.1 reported broken 18.20.8 referenced by many quides? To get newer UNTESTED versions need environment variables and manually extract zipped versions set NODE_SKIP_PLATFORM_CHECK 1 set NODE_PATH C:\nodejs add to PATH ;C:\nodejs (it uses the ";" as separator) Maybe check https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp#on-windows (install c++ desktop app workload, install python) You might need a bit more than just extraction after all. For vs2019 some say Tools>Options>Debugging Disable "Enable JavaScript debugging for ASP.NET (Chrome, Edge and IE) Enable "Enable using the multi-target debugger for debugging JavaScript in -- " suggested for debugging: npm install -g node-inspect