PowerShell: Unable to Download the List of Available Providers

When VS Code prompted me to update PackageManagement it ran this command automatically:

powershell.exe -NoLogo -NoProfile -Command 'Install-Module -Name PackageManagement -Force -MinimumVersion 1.4.6 -Scope CurrentUser -AllowClobber'

And returned these warnings before failing:

WARNING: Unable to download from URI 'https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=627338&clcid=0x409' to ''.
WARNING: Unable to download the list of available providers. Check your internet connection.

The internet connection wasn’t the problem.

Cause

The PowerShell session was using TLS 1.0 or 1.1 by default. The PowerShell Gallery requires TLS 1.2, so any attempt to reach it fails — including provider list downloads that happen before Install-Module even starts.

Fix

Force TLS 1.2 in the current session before running the install:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
Install-Module -Name PackageManagement -Force -MinimumVersion 1.4.6 -Scope CurrentUser -AllowClobber

If you hit this frequently, you can set TLS 1.2 as the default for all PowerShell sessions by adding the ServicePointManager line to your $PROFILE.

Why this happens

Older versions of Windows and .NET default to TLS 1.0. Microsoft deprecated TLS 1.0 and 1.1 on the PowerShell Gallery in 2020, so sessions running on older defaults started failing around that time. Windows 10 with PowerShell 5.1 is the most common combination where this surfaces.