The roaming app data folder under your current user should be perfectly fine. This will also be the same location as the downloaded node versions and their globally-enabled packages. You'll be prompted to agree with the project's terms of use (currently it's the MIT License), then the installer will ask where to install nvm. Unzip the folder's contents and run nvm-setup.exe. 'Similar, not identical' as the project itself discloses. Note that this is not the same as the UNIX-based NVM project, although it is functionally equivalent. Go to the NVM for windows project page and download the latest available version's nvm-setup.zip from the releases page. Still, I'd recommend that you uninstall it anyway as this process will render the current installation completely useless. If you already have Node installed this should not be a major problem as NVM will overwrite any node-related environment variables and symlinks. Now, instead of installing Node.js from the official website, we should install the Node Version Manager and download Node versions from there. Installing this terminal is highly recommended if you plan to develop on Windows, using Node.js or otherwise. And it's an important (and, some would say, pretty belated) step towards making the Windows development experience similar to other major OS's. This is a hardware-accelerated tabbed terminal from which you can run Powershell, CMD or WSL interfaces. If not, open the Microsoft Store and download it free of charge. If you are using Windows 11, good news: you already have the Windows Terminal installed.

So let's set up a Windows machine for Node.js with multiple version management, while also addressing common pitfalls. You are also aware that there are multiple Node.js versions in active development and it is fairly common to find projects in the wild that only run in a handful of them. So you want to develop using the JavaScript run-everywhere platform on the same computer where you game, edit videos, code C# desktop apps, or whatever.

Windows nvm