how to recover the conda installation

[thistlillo]

All of a sudden the command:

conda remove --name myenv --all 

stopped working: when run, nothing happened, not even a single error message. nothing. It stopped working after I deleted from the envs folder a couple of environments that were not listed by conda env list. 

Luckily, the conda navigator still works and I was able to delete what I needed to (this seems weird: doesn't the GUI use conda?). 

I am using conda 4.9.2 on Windows 10 Pro, installed via miniconda.

When trying to understand how to recover my installation, I landed on:

https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/user-guide/troubleshooting/#recovering-your-anaconda-installation

where I read:

Change your original installer’s name so you do not overwrite it:

move Anaconda Anaconda_old

Run the Anaconda.exe installer as usual and use robocopy to sync the directories:

I could not understand what the original installer is:

• was I supposed to keep the installer when I first installed miniconda? What is that original installer?

However, I installed miniconda, not conda, and I did not keep the installer. Is there any way I can reset my conda installation without loosing all of the environments?