If npm install (Grunt) fails on Vagrant / Windows

Update: just use nodejs for Windows instead.

If your npm install fails on Vagrant / Windows, you should check:

1. Can you create symlinks in the shared folder;
2. Does the huge node_modules nested folder tree exceed the 260 character limit on Windows.

In our case, we ran into both issues at once. What finally solved the problem was:

1. Moving the vagrant shared folder from something like C:/Users/username/projects/shared/[etc] simply to C:/shared
2. Running sudo npm install –no-bin-links which tells npm not to create symlinks.