It apparently was rather simple. First of all, thanks for the replies! And second of all, thanks for pointing me to superuser.com I wasn't aware of the site and will continue there.
The fix was to use python -m pip install esptool as suggested by Valentin Kuhn.
To answer AKD, I have a lot of experience with programming on my MacBook, but I'm not experienced with actually maintaining the system side, I'm a creative user. It's just that ever since I got a Windows laptop it's been nothing but trouble and after months of chatting about each individual issue with people on Discord nobody has been able to find a solution. I'm not expecting a GUI, just a simple "esptool.py v3.0" was the answer I was expecting from the command line.
Now what I don't understand is that I've never found any hint to anyone suggesting python -m. I will get on superuser to find out more about why the standard instructions that work for most people, don't work for me.
Sorry for using the wrong site for my question, I came on here through another related question and it was past my bedtime and I wasn't thinking clear.
I'm lost with Python. After troubleshooting with a friend through Discord for literally months I am about to give up. This is my last attempt at trying to get Python fixed on my Windows 10 laptop.
I'm using a Lenovo Legion 5, bought the laptop in November 2020. I've not been able to get anything related to Python to run in the CMD window. I can run Python no problem, but nothing I have installed through pip has ever worked. I can use virtualenvs, but only through PyCharm for example. Python has never really worked through the command line.
Yes I tried reopening the CMD window, rebooted the system many times, ran the CMD as administrator, installed the path variables for both Python and esptool.py but nothing seems to help.
I honestly don't know where to start because none of the 250+ websites I've visited to so far that suggested a fix for any kind of issue I've been experiencing with Python has been working. I can run Python fine by the way, just none of the things installed through pip will work.
Let's start with a use-case:
I'm trying to run esptool.py so installed it with pip install esptool. This install worked fine, and I can confirm it is installed with pip show -f esptool.
However, when running esptool.py version it told me:
'esptool.py' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
So I added the local folder from the previous step to the %PATH% variables, after running esptool.py version it gave me a popup asking me with what kind of program I should open this, I didn't select to open with this kind of program from now on. This makes it so that I do not get an error, what now happens is that another window quickly opens and then exits without an error code. So I have no clue what's happening.
What should happen is that it should tell me which version is installed in the CMD window.
There have been a few other things going on with my Windows 10 install, for one, the username that I used during the installation wasn't used to create the user directory. Windows 10 somehow instead chose a name that was related to the first 5 characters of my email address, which is totally strange as I haven't used that string in the installation of Windows 10 at all. This was a fresh install on a new laptop.
Now, after an update of Win10 my user icon doesn't display anymore and I had to change ownership of the 'Windows Apps' folder in order to be able to access it. Changing the ownership also changed the name I now see on the login screen when I boot up the laptop. It changed from the 5 first chars of my email address to my full name in the login screen, only because I took ownership of this folder so I could access it.
There have been a lot of things going on that I think should not be changing all the time, things to do with administrator rights, ownership, etc.
Now, since opening esptool.py doesn't open it, but also doesn't show me an error, I'm clueless and the only thing I can think of is doing a fresh system install, but I have a bunch of projects going on for which I need this laptop in working order and I don't have the mental health (due to corona) left to do a fresh system install. I'm worn down. Not in a dramatic way, I just don't have the spare energy to go through the whole process. So I'm hoping someone can point me in the right way to troubleshoot why my Python doesn't want to work natively.
What happens when running esptool.py version is that I can see it opens a Python window, but without showing any content it closes within a few milliseconds.
What is going on, how do I continue? I hope someone knows how to troubleshoot my system, to find the core of the problem.
PIP installed items don't want to work in Windows 10