Sometimes, when I right click npm and select "Manage npm Modules", the package manages says "Loading published package list", but it comes back empty. See screenshot here: 
I am still able to install packages using the npm command, but they are not added to packages.json and I have to call npm init manually.
Comments: This was working for me in Beta 1 but stopped in Beta 2. Packages.json does exist in "C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Node.js Tools" and is about 44MB Screen shot attached showing empty NPM globals (in solution explorer) and empty package list. Platform is Windows 7, 64bit but using 32bit Visual Studio 2013 and 32bit NodeJS version 0.10.29
I am still able to install packages using the npm command, but they are not added to packages.json and I have to call npm init manually.
Comments: This was working for me in Beta 1 but stopped in Beta 2. Packages.json does exist in "C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Node.js Tools" and is about 44MB Screen shot attached showing empty NPM globals (in solution explorer) and empty package list. Platform is Windows 7, 64bit but using 32bit Visual Studio 2013 and 32bit NodeJS version 0.10.29