Error installing Cypress via NPM "spawn C:\Program ENOENT" - node.js

Question

can't get over this error for a day, can't find viable solution online, please help me see what I don't see. I have two laptops next to each other, one installed nodejs and cypress flawlessly, one is throwing this kind of error. Tried reinstalling, uninstalling, changing PATH variable, different versions of nodejs, turning off and on, restarting, and looking for solution online for hours. I don't want to download Cypress directly, I want to do it the "correct way". Relevant lines from log:
1116 info run cypress#7.2.0 postinstall node_modules/cypress node index.js --exec install
1117 info run cypress#7.2.0 postinstall { code: 'ENOENT', signal: undefined }
1118 timing reify:rollback:createSparse Completed in 779ms
1119 timing reify:rollback:retireShallow Completed in 0ms
1120 timing command:install Completed in 5328ms
1121 verbose stack Error: spawn C:\Program ENOENT
1121 verbose stack at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:269:19)
1121 verbose stack at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:465:16)
1121 verbose stack at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:80:21)
1122 verbose pkgid cypress#7.2.0
1123 verbose cwd C:\Users\sopkop\cypress_project
1124 verbose Windows_NT 10.0.19042
1125 verbose argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Users\\sopkop\\AppData\\Roaming\\npm\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "install" "cypress"
1126 verbose node v14.16.1
1127 verbose npm v7.11.2
1128 error code ENOENT
1129 error syscall spawn C:\Program
1130 error path C:\Users\sopkop\cypress_project\node_modules\cypress
1131 error errno -4058
1132 error enoent spawn C:\Program ENOENT
1133 error enoent This is related to npm not being able to find a file.
1134 verbose exit -4058

Answer 1

This
spawn C:\Program ENOENT
Looks like you have an unquoted path in the post install. That is probably supposed to "C:\Program Files..." or "C:\Program Files (x86)...". Instead it is trying to execute the C:\Program which fails with ENOENT because it doesn't exist. Check your environment settings and the scripts you are calling.

Answer 2

problem was with user configuration in .npmrc file. contents of the file:
script-shell=C:\Program
Files\git\bin\bash.exe=
registry=http://registry.npmjs.org/
strict-ssl=false
proxy=null
https-proxy=null
not sure where did the "script-shell=C:\Program" come from, but deleting .npmrc file fixed the issue.