Once Visual Studio Code and Git are ready, we can install Node.js and NPM on Windows:
- Navigate to https://nodejs.org/en and get the corresponding installer. Note that the website detects your platform for you and suggests the corresponding installer package. For Windows, you are going to see the Download for Windows (x64) label and two buttons where you can select either the LTS, that is, the stable LTS version, or a current one, with the most recent cutting-edge features.
- Download and run the installation file. Proceed with the setup wizard and use the default settings—these are usually pretty reasonable.
Optionally, in the Tools for Native Modules dialog, you can allow the automatic installation of a set of the tools so that you can compile native modules. This is shown in the following screenshot:
The option for the native module instructs the setup wizard to download and configure all the necessary tooling after the installation of Node.js is over.
Please note that the extra tools require about 3 GB of additional space on your disk and may take a few minutes to install. However, I recommend installing those tools as you may come across third-party modules and libraries for the system's integration that require those tools.
Alternatively, you can always download the latest copy of the Node.js installer again, go through the setup wizard steps, and check the Tools for Native Modules option if you forgot to do that previously.