Windows User - How can I get npm to work again without down-grading?

[prenaut41]

I'm on Windows Server 2012 R2.
I had been using node 5.4.1 and npm 3.3.4 from Visual Studio 2017.
I recently tried to update to node 8.11.2 and npm 5.6.0 by using the recommended installer on the node website.

After updating, t is incredibly hard to get anything done anymore. I'm incredibly lucky if package installs work. I've been looking through the various Issues related to node doing things in the Windows file system with the npm-cache, such as:
#17671
#18380
#19004
#19042

But I'm still confused as to what to do. It looks like there were some pull requests to try and improve (if not yet completely fix) the issues, but were those actually merged, and is there a version of npm that is supposed to work now? What is the recommended version of npm for Windows users today?

And then my 2nd question is how do I go about updating npm by itself (since the node installers only include up to npm version 5.6.0)? Can I just run "npm install npm@#.#.#" from a windows command line and expect that to work? I see there is a npm-windows-upgrade package, but is that really necessary?

[mscdex]

This issue tracker is for reporting bugs in node core and submitting feature requests for node core.

General help questions should be posted to the nodejs/help issue tracker instead.

Issues with third-party modules, npm, or other tools that use node, should be posted to the appropriate issue tracker for that project, unless it can be proven that the issue is in fact with node core and not the module/tool in question.

[prenaut41]

Sorry, thought I was in the npm repo, but I posted in node by accident.