NPM - npm install fails with ENOENT mkdir error on Windows VDI (Node v24, no admin rights)

I've Node v24 installed in my Windows VDI. When running command npm i it gives the following error:

PS C:\Users\RAY\Dashboard\frontend> npm i
npm error code ENOENT
npm error syscall mkdir
npm error path C:\Users\RAY\Dashboard\frontend
npm error errno -4058
npm error enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, mkdir 'C:\Users\RAY\Dashboard\frontend'
npm error enoent This is related to npm not being able to find a file.
npm error enoent
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: C:\Users\RAY\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2025-11-12T05_50_23_321Z-debug-0.log
PS C:\Users\RAY\Dashboard\frontend>

I checked node & npm version which are showing:

PS C:\Users\RAY\Dashboard\frontend> node -v
v24.9.0
PS C:\Users\RAY\Dashboard\frontend> npm -v
10.9.3

I also checked that nodejs folder is present in Program Files directory under C://.

To test if node is properly installed I created a simple test.js file & ran using command node test.js which gave below error:

PS C:\Users\RAY\Dashboard\test> node .\test.js  
node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1423
  throw err;
  ^

Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Users\RAY\Dashboard\test\test.js'
    at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1420:15)
    at defaultResolveImpl (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1058:19)
    at resolveForCJSWithHooks (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1063:22)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1226:37)
    at TracingChannel.traceSync (node:diagnostics_channel:328:14)
    at wrapModuleLoad (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:244:24)
    at Module.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:154:5)
    at node:internal/main/run_main_module:33:47 {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  requireStack: []
}

Node.js v24.9.0

I also tried copying the node_modules & directly running npm run dev (Custom command for my project) which also resulted in above error. Same node version is running fine in my local machine. How can I fix it? My customer is very slow to respond & they i guess are not able to understand the installation process. any change I can make to make it work? I followed this question also but no help.

PS: I don't have admin permission to reinstall or modify something which require admin privilege.