How could installing Visual Studio 2017 break node.js or the typescript compiler?

I've installed the latest version of Visual Studio 2017; one of the install options I chose was to include the node.js support.

I'm not entirely sure what the installer has done, but I have been working on an angular 2 project for several months; the last time I changed the code was over a month ago before installing VS2017.

The code for the app is not a problem (the app itself is currently working fine in its deployed environment on an IIS web server) - the problem appears to be with tsc the typescript compiler; nearly all of the errors are from typescript core libraries, seemingly not recognising built-in typescript types.

The project is based on the angular2 quickstart seed from some time back in November 2016.

Today, when I run npm start I'm seeing the following typescript errors relating the core libraries:

C:\Source\website>npm start

> angular-quickstart@1.0.0 start C:\Source\website
> tsc && concurrently "tsc -w" "lite-server"

node_modules/@angular/core/src/facade/lang.d.ts(12,17): error TS2693: 'Map' only refers to a type, but is being used as a value here.
node_modules/@angular/core/src/facade/lang.d.ts(13,17): error TS2693: 'Set' only refers to a type, but is being used as a value here.
node_modules/@types/core-js/index.d.ts(47,36): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'Iterable'.
node_modules/@types/core-js/index.d.ts(350,48): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'PropertyKey'.
node_modules/@types/core-js/index.d.ts(351,52): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'PropertyKey'.

       .
       .
       .
   (... The list of errors carries on for many other .ts libraries)

I've attempted several solutions already:

This issue on github https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/21968 suggests two solutions:

Firstly, adding this into tsconfig.json didn't fix the problem:

  "compilerOptions": {
    ...
    "types" : [ "node", "jasmine", "core-js" ]
  }

Also running these two commands didn't fix the problem either:

npm i -D @types/core-js
npm i -D core-js

Lastly, trying to change the target in tsconfig.json to various different things including es5, es6, es2015 do not fix the problem either.

Here's my original unmodified tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es5",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "removeComments": false,
    "noImplicitAny": true,
    "suppressImplicitAnyIndexErrors": true,
    "typeRoots": [
      "./node_modules/@types/"
    ]
  },
  "compileOnSave": true,
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules/*",
    "**/*-aot.ts"
  ]
}

And the package.json:

{
  "name": "angular-quickstart",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "QuickStart package.json from the documentation, supplemented with testing support",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "tsc && concurrently \"tsc -w\" \"lite-server\" ",
    "docker-build": "docker build -t ng2-quickstart .",
    "docker": "npm run docker-build && docker run -it --rm -p 3000:3000 -p 3001:3001 ng2-quickstart",
    "pree2e": "npm run webdriver:update",
    "e2e": "tsc && concurrently \"http-server -s\" \"protractor protractor.config.js\" --kill-others --success first",
    "lint": "tslint ./app/**/*.ts -t verbose",
    "lite": "lite-server",
    "test": "tsc && concurrently \"tsc -w\" \"karma start karma.conf.js\"",
    "test-once": "tsc && karma start karma.conf.js --single-run",
    "tsc": "tsc",
    "tsc:w": "tsc -w",
    "webdriver:update": "webdriver-manager update"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "licenses": [
    {
      "type": "MIT",
      "url": "https://github.com/angular/angular.io/blob/master/LICENSE"
    }
  ],
  "dependencies": {
    "@angular/common": "~2.1.2",
    "@angular/compiler": "~2.1.2",
    "@angular/core": "~2.1.2",
    "@angular/forms": "~2.1.2",
    "@angular/http": "~2.1.2",
    "@angular/platform-browser": "~2.1.2",
    "@angular/platform-browser-dynamic": "~2.1.2",
    "@angular/router": "~3.1.2",
    "@angular/upgrade": "~2.1.2",
    "angular-in-memory-web-api": "~0.1.13",
    "bootstrap": "^3.3.7",
    "core-js": "^2.4.1",
    "font-awesome": "^4.7.0",
    "primeng": "^1.1.0",
    "reflect-metadata": "^0.1.8",
    "rxjs": "5.0.0-beta.12",
    "systemjs": "0.19.40",
    "zone.js": "^0.6.26"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@types/core-js": "^0.9.41",
    "@types/jasmine": "^2.5.36",
    "@types/node": "^6.0.46",
    "@types/selenium-webdriver": "^2.53.33",
    "canonical-path": "0.0.2",
    "concurrently": "^3.1.0",
    "core-js": "^2.4.1",
    "http-server": "^0.9.0",
    "jasmine-core": "~2.4.1",
    "karma": "^1.3.0",
    "karma-chrome-launcher": "^2.0.0",
    "karma-cli": "^1.0.1",
    "karma-htmlfile-reporter": "^0.3.4",
    "karma-jasmine": "^1.0.2",
    "karma-jasmine-html-reporter": "^0.2.2",
    "lite-server": "^2.2.2",
    "lodash": "^4.16.4",
    "protractor": "4.0.9",
    "rimraf": "^2.5.4",
    "tslint": "^3.15.1",
    "typescript": "^2.1.4",
    "webdriver-manager": "10.2.5"
  },
  "repository": {}
}

I've tried reinstalling node.js - currently using version 6.10.2 although I've tried 7.0.0 with no success.

I'm running Typescript version 2.1.0

I'm running Windows 10. The path for nodejs is in my System %PATH% environment variable:

c:\Program Files\nodejs\

Here's the full text for the system %PATH% entry:

C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\110\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\120\DTS\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Tools\Binn\ManagementStudio\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\120\DTS\Binn\;C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\TypeScript\1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\GitExtensions\;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Emulator Manager\1.0\;%APPDATA%;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;C:\Program Files\nodejs\

---

Questions:

1. Is it possible that a PATH variable has been broken and/or is pointing to the wrong install of node.js?
2. Is there anything else other than packages.config which determines the version of tsc.exe ?
3. Are there any other environment variables or configuration settings which Visual Studio 2017 could possibly have messed with to break this?
4. Has Visual Studio 2017 installed an older node.js (or maybe some newer unconfigured nodejs) somewhere else that I can't see in my list of installed programs? would that cause a conflict?
5. Is something overriding the tsc.exe path?

via Ben Cottrell