Node.js (npm) refuses to find python even after %PYTHON% has been set
TL;DR Make a copy or alias of your python.exe with name python2.7.exe
My python 2.7 was installed as
D:\app\Python27\python.exe
I always got this error no matter how I set (and verified) PYTHON env variable:
gyp ERR! stack Error: Can't find Python executable "python2.7", you can set the PYTHON env variable. gyp ERR! stack at failNoPython (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\lib\configure.js:103:14)
The reason for this was that in node-gyp's configure.js the python executable was resolved like:
var python = gyp.opts.python || process.env.PYTHON || 'python'
And it turned out that gyp.opts.python had value 'python2.7' thus overriding process.env.PYTHON.
I resolved this by creating an alias for python.exe executable with name node-gyp was looking for:
D:\app\Python27>mklink python2.7.exe python.exe
You need admin rights for this operation.
I figured out the most stable solution is to set python
npm internal value to actual path:
npm config set python C:\Programs\Python2.7\python2.7.exe
This skips all environment variable and %PATH%
crap and just starts the python wherever it's installed.