Can't get to first base - I am following the "Getting Started Guide"

[gorillapilot]

I cannot get esptool to execute any commands. I used pip to install it on my Win 10 PC and the response says it is installed. But no matter what I tell it to do, all that happens is that another window opens for a fraction of a second and then disappears.

Below is the cmd window. You can see that esptool.py.exe is there. So it does look like pip installed it ok.

Any help anyone can provide would be very greatly appreciated!

For example, these commands don't work.
D:\AAA Data\4 Microcontrollers\MicroPython\esptool-master>esptool.py -p COM7 erase_flash
D:\AAA Data\4 Microcontrollers\MicroPython\esptool-master>esptool.py -p COM7 flash_id

Directory of D:\AAA Data\4 Microcontrollers\MicroPython\esptool-master
06/17/2024 23:44 <DIR> .
06/17/2024 23:44 <DIR> ..
06/17/2024 18:02 130 .codespellrc
06/17/2024 18:02 570 .cz.toml
06/17/2024 18:02 477 .git-blame-ignore-revs
06/17/2024 18:02 <DIR> .github
06/17/2024 18:02 112 .gitignore
06/17/2024 18:02 19,774 .gitlab-ci.yml
06/17/2024 18:02 719 .mypy.ini
06/17/2024 18:02 1,148 .pre-commit-config.yaml
06/17/2024 18:02 1,479 .ruff.toml
06/17/2024 19:29 0 cd
06/17/2024 18:02 5,933 CHANGELOG.md
06/17/2024 18:02 <DIR> ci
06/17/2024 18:02 9,388 CONTRIBUTING.rst
06/17/2024 18:02 <DIR> docs
06/17/2024 18:02 <DIR> espefuse
06/17/2024 18:02 1,180 espefuse.py
06/17/2024 18:02 <DIR> espsecure
06/17/2024 18:02 1,185 espsecure.py
06/17/2024 18:54 <DIR> esptool
06/17/2024 19:29 0 esptool.py
06/17/2024 19:33 74,752 esptool.py.exe
06/17/2024 18:02 10,513 esp_rfc2217_server.py
06/17/2024 18:02 <DIR> flasher_stub
06/17/2024 18:02 18,092 LICENSE
06/17/2024 18:02 305 MANIFEST.in
06/17/2024 18:02 1,371 README.md
06/17/2024 18:02 4,326 setup.py
06/17/2024 23:51 <DIR> test
20 File(s) 151,454 bytes
10 Dir(s) 2,417,482,940,416 bytes free

[JoeSensoric]

Just an idea: You have spaces in your path. I always avoid theses because in some scripts this leads to problems.