As commented below you may not need to install VS on windows, check this out
https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/issues/629#issuecomment-153196245
UPDATED 02/2016
Some npm plugins need node-gyp
to be installed.
However, node-gyp
has it’s own dependencies (from the github page):
UPDATED 09/2016
If you’re using Windows you can now install all node-gyp
dependencies with single command (NOTE: Run As Admin in Windows PowerShell):
$ npm install --global --production windows-build-tools
and then install the package
$ npm install --global node-gyp
UPDATED 06/2018
https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/issues/809#issuecomment-155019383
Delete your $HOME/.node-gyp directory and try again.
See full documentation here: node-gyp