msbuild error MSB4025

I’m using Windows 10, node 7.7.2, npm 4.1.2

I get this error when running node-gyp rebuild for after installing the binding module leveldown (My objective is to rebuild it for electron). The specific error is…

MSBUILD : error MSB4025: The project file could not be loaded. Root element is missing.

I searched for this error but it seemed to be specific to visual studio projects and xml files. I don’t have a lot of context since I’m not usually a windows user. Somewhere I found that you can specific --msvs_version=2013, that did not work. But I tried with 2017 (because that’s the latest download) and I got the following error.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Gebruiker\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\gyp\gyp_main.py", line 16, in <module>
    sys.exit(gyp.script_main())
  File "C:\Users\Gebruiker\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\gyp\pylib\gyp\__init__.py", line 545, in script_main
    return main(sys.argv[1:])
  File "C:\Users\Gebruiker\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\gyp\pylib\gyp\__init__.py", line 538, in main
    return gyp_main(args)
  File "C:\Users\Gebruiker\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\gyp\pylib\gyp\__init__.py", line 514, in gyp_main
    options.duplicate_basename_check)
  File "C:\Users\Gebruiker\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\gyp\pylib\gyp\__init__.py", line 98, in Load
    generator.CalculateVariables(default_variables, params)
  File "C:\Users\Gebruiker\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\gyp\pylib\gyp\generator\msvs.py", line 1900, in CalculateVariables
    generator_flags.get('msvs_version', 'auto'))
  File "C:\Users\Gebruiker\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\gyp\pylib\gyp\MSVSVersion.py", line 434, in SelectVisualStudioVersion
    versions = _DetectVisualStudioVersions(version_map[version], 'e' in version)
KeyError: '2017'

If anyone has any idas I would be very grateful! -S

[refack]

Except it uses the msbuild.exe on the path by default, so you need to either ensure the v14.0 msbuild in %PROGRAM_FILES(x86)%\MSBuild\v14.0\Bin is the one it finds, or install the v140 C++ toolchain in VS 2017. Ugh.

3.6.0 supports VS2017 You can install Build Tools for Visual Studio 2017, make sure to select C++ tools, Windows 10 SDK and MSBuild and your set.

This bug can be closed /cc @rvagg

Edit

for node-gyp@3.6.0 do not install any of the special SDKs (red) only any of the greens P.S. you only need one, and best tested is 10393

[endnch]

I solved this error by running npm install --global --production windows-build-tools --vs2015 (note the --vs2015)