node.js Setup Wizard ended prematurely in windows 10 64bit

Question

For the last 3 days I have been trying to figure out how to install node.js. I tried every solution that I found on the internet, like disabling certain components during installation, installing both x86 and x64 etc, none of them worked.

My OS is Windows 10 x64. I tried different versions of node.js and they all return the same error shown in the screenshot below.

I tried installing through the command line and got the log. But I could not find anything useful from the log either. Please help. The log can be found here: this path : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OkkK36hlQeBX0xTNuOuilGaNr1u3S55e

Answer 1

MSI (s) (74:88) [20:49:45:955]: Executing op: ActionStart(Name=RegisterEventManifest,,)
MSI (s) (74:88) [20:49:45:961]: Executing op: CustomActionSchedule(Action=RegisterEventManifest,ActionType=3073,Source=BinaryData,Target=CAQuietExec,CustomActionData="wevtutil.exe" im "C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_etw_provider.man")
MSI (s) (74:A0) [20:49:45:969]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\WINDOWS\Installer\MSI33C1.tmp, Entrypoint: CAQuietExec
CAQuietExec:  Error 0xc0000409: Command line returned an error.

This is the relevant part of the log and where the install keels over, noise removed. 0xc0000409 is very, very nasty. STATUS_STACK_BUFFER_OVERRUN is a stack corruption error, triggered by code that protects against viral attacks.

Searching for "nodejs install 0xc0000409" takes you to this bug report, notable from December 2015. This issue has been dogging users for a long time, but they are having trouble finding the root cause. The generic workaround is to disable this install step by disabling the installation of the ETW performance counters.

Which works, but is but a band-aid. I think macario1983's comment points at the real troublemaker. It got a lot of helpful votes in just two days. And points at the kind of viral rootkit that programmer's voluntarily install, the kind that can so easily cause a STATUS_STACK_BUFFER_OVERRUN error with no decent way to identify the code that causes it. Anti-malware has become a cure that is worse than the disease, Avast in particular is a truly awful product and does not belong on a programmer's machine.

So decent advice is to 1: disable the anti-malware product before installing Node. 2: get rid of completely if it is Avast. 3: disable the performance counter registration. 4: try the updated installer, patched 4 days ago.