Install NVM for Windows Without Administrator

September 3, 2025

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by chuongmep

Most tutorials for nvm-windows assume you install it using the Windows installer, which requires administrator privileges. But what if you can’t run installers or don’t have admin rights?

Here’s a step-by-step guide to setting up NVM (Node Version Manager) for Windows manually, without admin access.

1. Download NVM for Windows (No-Install)

Go to the nvm-windows releases page and download the nvm-noinstall.zip package.

Extract it somewhere you can write to, for example:

D:\_WIP\Download\nvm-noinstall

2. Create `settings.txt`

Inside the extracted folder, create a new file called settings.txt with this content:

root: D:\_WIP\Download\nvm-noinstall
path: D:\_WIP\Download\nvm-noinstall\nodejs
arch: 64
proxy: none

This tells NVM where to keep Node.js versions and where the active Node.js binary should be symlinked.

3. Create the `nodejs` Folder

Still inside your extracted folder, create a new folder:

nodejs

This will be the folder NVM points to for the currently active Node.js version.

4. Install Node.js Using NVM

Open Command Prompt (no admin needed) and run:

nvm install latest

This will download and install the latest version of Node.js.

5. Setup Environment Variables

Since you don’t have admin rights, you’ll set user-level environment variables.

Add the following to your user environment variables:

NVM_HOME → D:\_WIP\Download\nvm-noinstall
NVM_SYMLINK → D:\_WIP\Download\nvm-noinstall\nodejs

Then, update your Path (user-level) to include:

%NVM_HOME%
%NVM_SYMLINK%

Tip: You don’t need to set nvm_symlink manually in environment variable, only settings.txt.

6. Verify Installation

Check available Node.js versions:

nvm list available

Check installed versions:

nvm list

Switch Node.js versions easily:

nvm use 20

References

Bonus: What’s Next?

If you’re looking at alternatives to Node.js, check out Bun — a modern JavaScript runtime that is fast and has built-in tools like a bundler, transpiler, and test runner.

Would you like me to make this more hands-on with a screenshot of environment variable setup and the settings.txt file so dev.to readers don’t get stuck?