npm not responding after changing the prefix

Question

I tried updating my IONIC CLI through the npm recently, the installation were successful a couple of time but the CLI version did not change. After a research I decided to change the npm prefix, then the IONIC strated throwing up bash: IONIC command not found. Then I did a further research after which I edited the npm config through windows cmd admin. I did

 npm  cofig edit 

I changed the prefix to

 \users\<username>\

since then, npm no longer respond.

if I run something like

npm install -g ionic

nothing happens, no errors nor any form of response. I have uninstall and reinstall the node several time. I am using node V4.2.2.

Answer 1

I finally found a way around this . These are what I did

1. I deleted all the node_module folders in all my application (I am not sure if this is really necessary )

2. I did a complete uninstall of the node by following https://stackoverflow.com/a/20711410/1363169

3. I ran

   npm root -g
   

   which returns the path

   C:\Users\<username>\node_module
   

   instead of

    /usr/local 
   

   or wherever node is installed , in my own case node is install in

    C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\npm
   

   I then ran

     npm config set prefix "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\npm"
   

Then I reinstalled cordova and ionic again

    npm install  -g cordova
      npm install ionic -g

and all is well again