I did that. I went further and uninstalled all python, conda and everything else I couldn’t live without on my computer. Then I installed miniconda and pytorch. per pytorch install instructions, conda did not install the VC runtime, but once I got that on, I was finally able to get a true value from torch.cuda.is_available().
(See https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/32916#issuecomment-611857832 40)