[FIXED] Cannot install NodeBB on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012

[jinx]

EDIT: I'm just going to rewrite this now, because my troubleshooting has looped around on itself.

I'm trying to install NodeBB into a VM that I have running Windows Server 2012. It has to be running WS2012 because that is the environment that it will eventually need to run in if I am going to use it in production.

My problem is that when I do node app.js --setup I am missing lots of modules. I install the modules until it tells me I am missing the module './build/Release/magic'. To my understanding, using npm i mmmagic should install this module, but when I do, I get an error. Here are the images showing the errors.

I'd appreciate it if someone could help me out. Really want to get NodeBB up and running so I can start working with it and see if it is something I want to stick with.

[julian]

@joelski What version of visual studio do you have installed?

[jinx]

@julian I did not know I needed to have it installed. I'll install it and update this post.

[jarey]

I thought i got it running with visual studio express 2012. If it doesnt work try 2013/2008. One of them did the trick for me, can't remember wich of them.

Regards.

[jinx]

@jarey I'm installing Visual Studio Community 2015 on my VM at the moment. (Albeit very, very slowly as my internet is complete trash...) If it doesn't work then i'll just have to go about setting up node on our production server, so I don't have to wait on my slow internet.

[jinx]

@julian @jarey I did node app.js --setup, it told me I needed the module 'mmmagic'. I then did npm i mmmagic, then I got this;

UPDATE: Read the error and looked at my files. I had a /V140 directory, so I copy & pasted it and renamed it to /V110. Then I got this error (I copy-pasted it into a pastebin, it was too long to get a screenshot.) http://pastebin.com/exfcfBnX

[jinx]

@julian @jarey Thanks for your help. After a little piddling I found a solution. I'd really like to see this added to the docs, it would save a lot of people a lot of headaches...

For a successful installation on Windows Server 2008;

Install the following;
https://windows.github.com/
https://nodejs.org/dist/v0.10.35/ (The latest version will not work. It will give you a node-gyp error. This is the only version i've found that works.)
https://github.com/MSOpenTech/redis/releases
http://imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php#windows/
https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.8/python-2.7.8.msi
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44914 (There are several versions of this. I have linked the one that you need.)

Restart your computer and continue installation as per the docs.

EDIT: Everything got setup

[jinx]

@julian @jarey New Issue:
everything works well up until this point;

[jarey]

@jinx have you started the redis server? seems that the problem is that it is not running. Check that you have started the redis server because on windows it doesnt start automatically on startup in the default config.

Regards.

[jinx]

@jarey I started Redis, even tried restarting then starting it again. I tried using the supplied bat and from the exe directly.

[jarey]

@jinx running C:\Program Files (x86)\Redis\StartRedisServer.cmd isthrowing any errors? Do you keep alive the cmd where you run it while executing node app.js --setup?

[jinx]

@jarey Keeping the window open did the trick. Does it need to stay open all the time?

[jarey]

@jinx the server needs to be running. I suppose that itcan be running in background but didnt tried in windows. In unix systems it runs in background when the machine boots by default.

Glad it helped.

[jinx]

@jarey Cannot view the forum from localhost:4567 or 127.0.0.1:4567 EDIT: Fixed. The version of Redis linked in the docs is way too old.

[jarey]

@jinx glad to hear you got it working :).