Changing from Node 4.2.3 LTS with npm 3.1.2 to Stable 5.9 caused npm, to break

[balmyBanzai]

Starting:
Node 4.2.3
npm 3.1.2

Ending:
Node 5.9
npm ???? (no npm commands worked in any of my shells)

OS: Windows 10, x64 Pro

Description:
Changing from Node 4.2.3 LTS with npm 3.1.2 to Stable 5.9 caused NPM to break. Absolutely no npm functionality was working, not even version-checking. Node seemed to be working.

Part of error message:

Error: Cannot find module 'minimatch'

Observations:
After uninstalling Node and re-installing it, I noticed the installer in the Installer directory was still 4.2.3

Workaround:

1. Uninstall Node
2. Backup any content you may want in your node installation folder
3. Completely delete the node installation folder (default: /c/program files/nodejs)
4. Re-install Node 5.9

RESULT: Was able to successfully use npm again with the default install of npm 3.7.3

[balmyBanzai]

Initial bug write-up was incorrectly labeled as 5.6, due to my brain, flipping numbers :)

[Fishrock123]

Duplicate of #3606 or #3786

We don't really know why this happens or have a fix for it, but if you uninstall npm before upgrading it should work. Something to do with file difference between npm 2 and 3, and how we do installs. :(

[Fishrock123]

Hmmm, looks like there might be more useful info on this issue. Not sure if/when we'll be able to fix though.

[Fishrock123]

cc @nodejs/build or @nodejs/platform-windows maybe

[joaocgreis]

I can't reproduce this by installing those exact versions in sequence.

npm installs global modules to %appdata%\npm and has the cache in %appdata%\npm-cache, deleting those might help (would delete all globally installed modules).

[Fishrock123]

In the past I wasn't able to consistently reproduce the OS X version of this issue either. :/

[jasnell]

Given that this is a duplicate, is there reason to keep it open