Cannot create new env in fresh Windows install because environment.yml is missing

### Solution to issue cannot be found in the documentation. - [x] I checked the documentation. ### Issue With a fresh install of miniforge on Windows, I tried to create a new env but it fails because there is no environment.yml. There is also a 404 error for notices.json, but that seems unreleated to me. -vvv output below: ``` (base) C:\Users\Szuperhab>conda env create -n base_dev -vvv DEBUG conda.gateways.logging:set_log_level(216): log_level set to 10 Retrieving notices: - DEBUG urllib3.connectionpool:_new_conn(1062): Starting new HTTPS connection (1): conda.anaconda.org:443 | DEBUG urllib3.connectionpool:_make_request(544): https://conda.anaconda.org:443 "GET /conda-forge/notices.json HTTP/1.1" 404 None INFO conda.notices.fetch:get_channel_notice_response(79): Received 404 when trying to GET https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/notices.json done Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\Lib\site-packages\conda\exception_handler.py", line 30, in __call__ return func(*args, **kwargs) File "C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\Lib\site-packages\conda\cli\main.py", line 62, in main_subshell exit_code = do_call(args, parser) File "C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\Lib\site-packages\conda\cli\conda_argparse.py", line 189, in do_call result = getattr(module, func_name)(args, parser) File "C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\Lib\site-packages\conda\notices\core.py", line 128, in wrapper return_value = func(*args, **kwargs) File "C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\Lib\site-packages\conda\cli\main_env_create.py", line 112, in execute validate_file_exists(args.file) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^ File "C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\Lib\site-packages\conda\cli\common.py", line 336, in validate_file_exists raise EnvironmentFileNotFound(filename=filename) conda.exceptions.EnvironmentFileNotFound: 'C:\Users\Szuperhab\environment.yml' file not found ``` ### Installed packages ```shell (base) C:\Users\Szuperhab>conda list # packages in environment at C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3: # # Name Version Build Channel archspec 0.2.5 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge backports.zstd 1.5.0 py313h2a31948_0 conda-forge boltons 25.0.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge brotli-python 1.2.0 py313h3ebfc14_1 conda-forge bzip2 1.0.8 h0ad9c76_9 conda-forge ca-certificates 2026.4.22 h4c7d964_0 conda-forge certifi 2026.4.22 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge cffi 2.0.0 py313h5ea7bf4_1 conda-forge charset-normalizer 3.4.7 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge colorama 0.4.6 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge conda 26.3.2 py313hfa70ccb_1 conda-forge conda-libmamba-solver 26.4.2 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge conda-package-handling 2.4.0 pyh7900ff3_2 conda-forge conda-package-streaming 0.12.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge cpp-expected 1.3.1 h477610d_0 conda-forge distro 1.9.0 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge fmt 12.1.0 h7f4e812_0 conda-forge frozendict 2.4.7 py313h5ea7bf4_0 conda-forge h2 4.3.0 pyhcf101f3_0 conda-forge hpack 4.1.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge hyperframe 6.1.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge idna 3.13 pyhcf101f3_0 conda-forge jsonpatch 1.33 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge jsonpointer 3.1.1 pyhcf101f3_0 conda-forge krb5 1.22.2 h0ea6238_0 conda-forge libarchive 3.8.7 gpl_he24518a_101 conda-forge libcurl 8.20.0 h8206538_0 conda-forge libexpat 2.8.0 hac47afa_0 conda-forge libffi 3.5.2 h3d046cb_0 conda-forge libiconv 1.18 hc1393d2_2 conda-forge liblzma 5.8.3 hfd05255_0 conda-forge libmamba 2.6.0 h06825f5_0 conda-forge libmamba-spdlog 2.6.0 hf6bdd43_0 conda-forge libmambapy 2.6.0 py313h0674672_0 conda-forge libmpdec 4.0.0 hfd05255_1 conda-forge libmsgpack-c 6.1.0 h5112557_6 conda-forge libsolv 0.7.37 h8883371_0 conda-forge libsqlite 3.53.1 hf5d6505_0 conda-forge libssh2 1.11.1 h9aa295b_0 conda-forge libxml2 2.15.3 hbc0d294_0 conda-forge libxml2-16 2.15.3 h692994f_0 conda-forge libzlib 1.3.2 hfd05255_2 conda-forge lz4-c 1.10.0 h2466b09_1 conda-forge lzo 2.10 h6a83c73_1002 conda-forge mamba 2.6.0 h9a1de3c_0 conda-forge menuinst 2.4.2 py313hfe59770_0 conda-forge miniforge_console_shortcut 1.0 h57928b3_0 conda-forge msgpack-python 1.1.2 py313hf069bd2_1 conda-forge nlohmann_json-abi 3.12.0 h0f90c79_1 conda-forge openssl 3.6.2 hf411b9b_0 conda-forge packaging 26.2 pyhc364b38_0 conda-forge pip 26.1.1 pyh145f28c_0 conda-forge platformdirs 4.9.6 pyhcf101f3_0 conda-forge pluggy 1.6.0 pyhf9edf01_1 conda-forge pybind11-abi 11 hc364b38_1 conda-forge pycosat 0.6.6 py313h5ea7bf4_3 conda-forge pycparser 2.22 pyh29332c3_1 conda-forge pysocks 1.7.1 pyh09c184e_7 conda-forge python 3.13.13 h09917c8_100_cp313 conda-forge python_abi 3.13 8_cp313 conda-forge reproc 14.2.7.post0 hfd05255_0 conda-forge reproc-cpp 14.2.7.post0 hac47afa_0 conda-forge requests 2.34.1 pyhcf101f3_0 conda-forge ruamel.yaml 0.18.17 py313h5fd188c_2 conda-forge ruamel.yaml.clib 0.2.15 py313h5fd188c_1 conda-forge setuptools 82.0.1 pyh332efcf_0 conda-forge simdjson 4.6.4 h49e36cd_0 conda-forge spdlog 1.17.0 h9f585f1_1 conda-forge tk 8.6.13 h6ed50ae_3 conda-forge tqdm 4.67.3 pyha7b4d00_0 conda-forge truststore 0.10.4 pyhcf101f3_0 conda-forge tzdata 2025c hc9c84f9_1 conda-forge ucrt 10.0.26100.0 h57928b3_0 conda-forge urllib3 2.7.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge vc 14.3 h41ae7f8_36 conda-forge vc14_runtime 14.44.35208 h818238b_36 conda-forge vcomp14 14.44.35208 h818238b_36 conda-forge win_inet_pton 1.1.0 pyh7428d3b_8 conda-forge yaml-cpp 0.8.0 he0c23c2_0 conda-forge zstandard 0.25.0 py313h5fd188c_1 conda-forge zstd 1.5.7 h534d264_6 conda-forge ``` ### Environment info ```shell (base) C:\Users\Szuperhab>conda info active environment : base active env location : C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3 shell level : 1 user config file : C:\Users\Szuperhab\.condarc populated config files : C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\.condarc conda version : 26.3.2 conda-build version : not installed python version : 3.13.13.final.0 solver : libmamba (default) virtual packages : __archspec=1=x86_64_v3 __conda=26.3.2=0 __win=10.0.17763=0 base environment : C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3 (writable) conda av data dir : C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\etc\conda conda av metadata url : None channel URLs : https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/win-64 https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/noarch package cache : C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\pkgs C:\Users\Szuperhab\.conda\pkgs C:\Users\Szuperhab\AppData\Local\conda\conda\pkgs envs directories : C:\Users\Szuperhab\miniforge3\envs C:\Users\Szuperhab\.conda\envs C:\Users\Szuperhab\AppData\Local\conda\conda\envs temporary directory : C:\Users\SZUPER~1\AppData\Local\Temp platform : win-64 user-agent : conda/26.3.2 requests/2.34.1 CPython/3.13.13 Windows/10 Windows/10.0.17763 solver/libmamba conda-libmamba-solver/26.4.2 libmambapy/2.6.0 administrator : False netrc file : None offline mode : False ```