installing express failed:unknown symlink ‘../express/bin/express

This happens when I am using a virtual VMwarePlayer Ubuntu OS, and install express in a “Shared Folder” pointing to a location on my hard drive external to Ubuntu.

When using a location on a folder within the standard Ubuntu location, I do not get this error.

I made it work by installing all dependencies globally one by one with sudo npm install -g <package>, then setting $NODE_PATH (which was empty before) to the location of the global npm repository,in my case /usr/local/lib/node_modules


For eg:

sudo npm install -g express

export NODE_PATH=/usr/local/lib/node_modules

This will surely work.