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I currently have installed Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, and ASP.NET and Web Tools 2015.1.

In this version Visual Studio appears to be integrated with npm, Bower, Grunt, and Gulp. For example;

  • The add file dialog displays configuration/code files for the above applications.
  • Right clicking on my project shows 'Manage Bower Packages'.
  • Task Runner Explorer recognises gruntfile.js.

Does this mean I do not need to install the applications myself?

Do I already have the application because Visual Studio has them packaged?

Should I install each application individually anyway? Do I have to do this or is it just for an optional benefit? For example:

  • Install Node.js to get NPM.
  • Then use Node.js in command line to get Bower, Grunt, and Gulp.

Further investigations with Grunt.

I setup a very simple Grunt build script and this worked when executed from within Visual Studio.

  • I did not install Node.js seperately, e.g. if I can open a console window input npm I get 'npm' is not recognized.
  • Nor do I use npm to install Grunt globally e.g. npm install -g grunt-cli.

So I'm guessing all the required elements for Grunt are provided within Visual Studio.

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Further investigations with Gulp.

Basically the same test as with Grunt, also works for Gulp. I can concatenate files without needing to; install Node.js seperately, or install Gulp globally using npm install --global gulp-cli.

So I'm guessing all the required elements for Gulp are also provided within Visual Studio.

Cœur
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James Wood
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  • i guess npm is not working in console because your os doesnt know it's path. you should not need to install anything seperately but to be able to use it everywhere, you need to set it in PATH if you are using windows ( which i guess is the case).. – Gogol Sep 12 '16 at 10:53

1 Answers1

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It looks like Visual Studio comes packaged with everything required already so no extra installs are necessary.

You can find the files here, C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Web\External.

Add npm to the PATH to use globally.

James Wood
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  • How do I get a Project to use them all? @James_Wood "Add `npm` to the `PATH` to use globally. What do you mean by that? – christopher clark Jan 04 '17 at 19:56
  • @christopherclark, IIRC; If you havn't installed `npm` separately, then within VS you can use `npm` within VS, e.g. via the Package Manager Console - as VS it setup for `npm` by default. However you can't use `npm` in a general Windows Command Prompt, as VS doesn't setup `npm` for Windows. If you wanted to, you could add the VS version of Node.js to the `PATH` so you could use it in a general Windows Command Prompt. If you install Node.js separately to the VS install (works fine its what I have now) then I believe Node.js does this as part of the install anyway. – James Wood Jan 04 '17 at 20:16
  • @christopherclark, Setting `PATH` variables: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27864040/fixing-npm-path-in-windows-8 – James Wood Jan 04 '17 at 20:17
  • @christopherclark, re: "How do I get a Project to use them all?", bit too broad to answer here, perhaps ask a new question for this. – James Wood Jan 04 '17 at 20:19