Bower is not updating via npm update -g bower

Question

When I just installed bootstrap-css with bower install I got this message to update bower from 1.2.8 to 1.3.1

$ bower install bootstrap-css
-----------------------------------------
Update available: 1.3.1 (current: 1.2.8)
Run npm update -g bower to update
-----------------------------------------

So I ran it and this is what happened

$ npm update -g bower
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/bower
npm http 304 https://registry.npmjs.org/bower

$ bower --version
1.2.8

I'm still on 1.2.8. How come bower is not updating?

Yes that is what I did and it worked. https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/5248#issuecomment-45222702 Not an elegant solution though. — , Jun 05 '14 at 14:06
possible duplicate of [Problems updating bower to the latest version](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22585790/problems-updating-bower-to-the-latest-version) — andyrandy, Apr 14 '15 at 09:03

score 17 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 19 '18 at 13:02

17

You need to update bower by running the following command:

npm install -g bower@latest

edited Jul 19 '18 at 13:02

MAK

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answered Apr 24 '15 at 13:41

Laurent

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Thanks for this. Weird that running exactly what they tell you to run doesn't actually work! – stephent Jan 06 '16 at 01:14

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 25 '15 at 15:57

2

You can use this command

npm update bower -g

answered Nov 25 '15 at 15:57

flyingduck92

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 06 '15 at 10:39

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Interestingly npm update -g bower was updating my bower to the latest but when I was checking the version with bower --version, it showed me the old version. I removed the old package from .npm/bower/ and then it recognized the new version!

answered Jun 06 '15 at 10:39

mohi

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 06 '15 at 10:23

If anyone is having this problem on Windows and has Visual Studio 2015 installed, you will need to go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Web Tools\External and rename bower.cmd to bower.cmdBAK.

Before doing that, running bower --version was always returning 1.3.9 for me when I knew from running npm ls -g | grep bower that I was at 1.6.5 globally.

Bower is not updating via npm update -g bower

4 Answers4