Honest question: Why is web development such a shitshow on Windows that that every single 'tutorial' like this doesn't even attempt to make it work, and instead just immediately directs Windows users to WSL?
NodeJs is not great on windows because the packages/modules model uses many tiny files and the Windows filesystem, NTFS, is extremely slow for this kind of load. Another problem is compiling C/C++ NodeJS dependencies on windows. It’s possible but few people cares about it and it’s often a source of issues. And the last issue are the windows specific bugs in various packages.
The community that write the nodejs packages kinda doesn’t care about windows, and has no reasons to since WSL.
See e.g. Python, which runs just fine everywhere.
Eventually, I worked around the problem by using a caching system to avoid blowing up the filesystem. It was necessary at the time, but it never felt like a satisfying solution. I wonder if anyone has the knowledge to make native Windows go fast on e.g. a large number of sequential git clone operations.
Linux and free and open software is what gave birth to the web, and so quite naturally working with it evolves better and more naturally there.
Bill Gates and Windows famously absolutely missed the boat on the Internet nearly entirely. And yes, to this day they're still trying to catch up -- this is evident in their extremely late realization that they were never ever going to beat Linux at this. Hence WSL. (the Linux Subsystem for Windows :) )
This is revisionist, butthurt Linux people and Netscape investors always repeat this lie.
Time has proved that nobody is willing to pay for a browser but it has to either be free or come as free with the OS.
Time also proved that people who know that they are top notch in their field want a top notch quality of life. If you are one of those top notch people and go work at Microsoft you end up with a beachfront property in Miami and boat not smaller than 40ft, if you take your skills to Linux you end up with a pat on the back and maybe become a moderator role in some obscure online forum.
Microsoft won because smart people understand that when you start talking about compensating them with exposure or social status instead of money that's the signal to get the hell out of there. If you don't you end up in a cult.
It took me a bit to get the settings right to mimic zsh/oh my zsh but now it's fine. It's just slower than mac/linux.
Meanwhile the internet was born and raised on Unix and had a competent (not perfect) design for terminals and shells.
The Windows terminal folks have done a bang-up job trying to make up the deficit, and mostly succeeded in the last few years. But it takes more than tools, it takes mindshare.
Was never interested in powershell, but there are other alternatives from WSL, like git-bash and the yori shell, both of which I recommend.