So I followed a guide to get Ionic 2 apps running in Visual Studio 2017 and noted that once your create a project, npm and node is used to get dependencies for the project. I monitored the output window and saw that there was a complaint that npm 5 or higher is sought but only 3.3.1 is found. This happens because the version that is found under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Web\External contains version 3.3.1 of npm and is used by VS to run the npm commands.
So in the settings of VS I changed the path that VS should use for npm and node tasks to my current updated NodeJS:
However now, when I create a ionic 2 blank template app, it does nothing after creation, i.e. it no longer gets the dependencies.
What can I do to fix this npm/node issue?