isaacs/npm — Issue #1891: Feature request: providing pre-compiled binary modules for Node.js end users on Windows
Author: Mithgol
Created: 2011-12-16 08:16:07+00:00
State: open

Since the fix of joyent/node#1746 it became possible to use compiled `.node` binaries on Windows as [file modules](http://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/modules.html#file_Modules).

As @Benvie has said at rbranson/node-ffi#30, providing some compiled binaries is the usual mode of things for Windows.

However, as @kkaefer has said at developmentseed/node-sqlite3#48, there's no clear blessed path to distribute such binaries via npm.

Some of the [existing Node.js modules](https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Modules) are, in fact, binary, but they are built by npm for end users (not by their developers for packaging), and, as far as I know, currently none of those are intended to run on Windows.

Foreseeing a future in which not every JavaScript developer on Windows is ready to have somewhat huge [Visual C++ 2010 Express](http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-cpp-express) installed for building Node.js modules (even though that installation is free of charge), I suggest that npm should introduce some `package.json` options and thus facilitate providing of two versions of pre-compiled binaries (that is, win32 version and win64 version) — pre-compiled by their own module developers.