Unable to build binary modules on windows-latest

I think this is just a path issue. As part of node serialport’s test process I need to ensure we can build the binary. I run node-gyp rebuild on the binary package and I get the following error.

gyp ERR! stack Error: spawn C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe ENOENT

full stack below

D:\a\node-serialport\node-serialport\packages\bindings>if not defined npm_config_node_gyp (node "C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\node\8.10.0\x64\node_modules\npm\node_modules\npm-lifecycle\node-gyp-bin\\..\..\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" rebuild )  else (node "C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\node\8.10.0\x64\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" rebuild ) 

lerna ERR! npm install stderr:
gyp ERR! UNCAUGHT EXCEPTION 
gyp ERR! stack Error: spawn C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe ENOENT
gyp ERR! stack     at _errnoException (util.js:1022:11)
gyp ERR! stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:190:19)
gyp ERR! stack     at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:372:16)
gyp ERR! stack     at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:138:11)
gyp ERR! stack     at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:180:9)
gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 10.0.17763
gyp ERR! command "C:\\hostedtoolcache\\windows\\node\\8.10.0\\x64\\node.exe" "C:\\hostedtoolcache\\windows\\node\\8.10.0\\x64\\node_modules\\npm\\node_modules\\node-gyp\\bin\\node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd D:\a\node-serialport\node-serialport\packages\bindings
gyp ERR! node -v v8.10.0
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.6.2
gyp ERR! This is a bug in `node-gyp`.

https://github.com/serialport/node-serialport/runs/240073493

[reconbot]

Turns out this is an issue with node-gyp and visual studio 2019.

After coming through some steps here https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/issues/1663 I was able to figure out a way through

    - name: patch node gyp on windows to support Visual Studio 2019
      shell: powershell
      run: |
        npm install --global node-gyp@latest
        npm prefix -g | % {npm config set node_gyp "$_\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js"}

I use a matrix for multiple OS’s so I also have this line to only run it on windows.

      if: matrix.os == 'windows-latest'

[vladimiry]

@kiruh I spent a lot of time trying to compile a native modules on windows-latest system but didn’t succeed. What I ended up doing is installing vs 2017 which helped. Here is the installing script https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/blob/4104ef5bfe4dc613c68f3aef67264d67394475cb/scripts/ci/github/install-vs-build-tools.ps1 + its call https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/blob/4104ef5bfe4dc613c68f3aef67264d67394475cb/scripts/ci/github/package-app.ps1#L2-L3.

Updating node-gyp is also required in my case https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/blob/1d5955b80d705ce2a789fafa6c40198f32637986/scripts/ci/github/install-node-gyp.ps1#L1 but that’s a little different story. It helps with compiling some native modules I use, but only some, not all of them.

Here is what gets installed by the above-referenced "install-vs-build-tools.ps1" script (installing takes ~ 3.5 minutes)

  InstanceId          : 2a98bf0b
  DisplayName         : Visual Studio Build Tools 2017
  InstallationVersion : 15.9.28307.1500
  InstallationPath    : C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools
  InstallDate         : 5/6/2021 8:07:08 PM
  
  Id       : Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows81SDK
  Version  : 15.6.27406.0
  Chip     : 
  Language : 
  Branch   : 
  
  Ticks             : 2050333112
  Days              : 0
  Hours             : 0
  Milliseconds      : 33
  Minutes           : 3
  Seconds           : 25
  TotalDays         : 0.00237307073148148
  TotalHours        : 0.0569536975555556
  TotalMilliseconds : 205033.3112
  TotalMinutes      : 3.41722185333333
  TotalSeconds      : 205.0333112