npm.exe: a bad hack for when your Node.js project that spawns npm isn't quite portable

npm.c

#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#include <windows.h>

#pragma comment(lib, "Shlwapi.lib")

/* Find the end of argv[0]. */
static WCHAR *
findargs(WCHAR *s)
{
    if (s[0] == 34)
    {
        /* quoted argv[0] */
        for (s++;; s++)
        {
            switch (*s)
            {
            case 0:
                return s;
            case 34:
                return s + 1;
            }
        }
    }
    else
    {
        /* unquoted argv[0] */
        for (;; s++)
        {
            switch (*s)
            {
            case 0:
            case 9:
            case 32:
                return s;
            }
        }
    }
}

int wmain(int argc, wchar_t *argv[])
{
    WCHAR npm_path[MAX_PATH] = L"\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js";
    WCHAR root_path[MAX_PATH];
    WCHAR node_path[MAX_PATH];
    WCHAR lib_path[MAX_PATH * 2];
    WCHAR cmd[MAX_PATH * 2] = L"";

    GetModuleFileNameW(NULL, root_path, MAX_PATH);
    if (!PathRemoveFileSpecW(root_path, MAX_PATH))
        return 1;

    wcscpy(node_path, root_path);
    wcscpy(lib_path, root_path);
    wcscat(node_path, L"\\node.exe");
    wcscat(lib_path, npm_path);

    WCHAR *args = findargs(GetCommandLineW());
    wcscat(cmd, L"-- \"");
    wcscat(cmd, lib_path);
    wcscat(cmd, L"\"");
    wcscat(cmd, args);

    STARTUPINFOW si;
    GetStartupInfoW(&si);
    PROCESS_INFORMATION process;

    if (!CreateProcessW(node_path, cmd, 0, 0, TRUE, 0, 0, 0, &si, &process))
    {
        return 1;
    }

    DWORD ret;
    WaitForSingleObject(process.hProcess, INFINITE);
    GetExitCodeProcess(process.hProcess, &ret);
    return ret;
}

A baddddd hack. It allows you to spawn npm (not npm.cmd) without running a shell directly. This is not a solution for 99.99% of cases.

You can compile your own npm.exe with a VS build tools shell and simply use cl (I'm sure it works with MinGW as well). Place the npm.exe next to where node.exe is in your Node.js installation. You can tweak the above for npx if needed.

Some the code above was taken from the w64devkit project.