You can ignore all my posts about the DevkitM-1 in that case.
I don't know if this is related to you specific problem, but I ALWAYS have trouble setting up the ESP32-C3s for the first time.
Using a win10 laptop and arduino IDE v2.x, what happens for me is:
I connect the esp32c3 via usb
Hear the plug-in sound
Shows briefly up on device manager
Hear the plug-out sound
Disappears
and so on forever.
I never had to install specific drivers for the device. If you have trouble, try this:
My working procedure to get these tiny troublemakers setup is:
Connect them with usb.
Press both buttons (boot and reset) at the same time.
Release reset
Release boot.
So the chip is stuck in boot/download mode.
Then, select the COM port on the IDE list.
Then select the board in tools>board>esp32>ESP32 C3 Dev Module
Turn ON "USB CDC on boot" to get a working serial monitor
Flash your sketch
Press once the "reset" button just the first time.
All of this always works for me and its pretty straightforward.
I think this is the key. The default sketch does not have USB CDC on boot enabled i suspect, so that means that during normal operation there is no USB Serial at all. In flash download Boot mode it should show up similar to the way an S2 does.
It's not because my computer doesn't recognize the driver at all in the first place, so I can't even select it in the COM port options in the IDE. And my board doesn't have a reset button, it has an EN button, and I've never been able to get the device into boot mode no matter how I press both the EN and BOOT buttons.
I also did read the reviews before buying it and none of them mentioned having driver issues, so didn't suspect I'd deal with a problem like this. In fact, several of the reviews go on about how they got theirs to work, so I genuinely can't tell if it really is the boards being faulty or it's my device being the problem.
I've had two different people test the same boards on different devices and both of them were able to get their PCs to recognize the serial driver, so I doubt it is solely a hardware issue. It is likely something specifically wrong with my PC, but I have no idea what or how to fix it.
I FOUND THE SOLUTION!
It turns out something called "DeviceInstallDisable" was enabled in the Registry Editor, and that prevented the driver from installing. This was the guide I used: Windows 10 – One of the installers for this device cannot perform the installation at this time
It also works for Windows 11. You don't even need to reinstall the driver afterwards, the Device Manager will just start recognizing it after you restart your PC (crucial step):
I really hope this helps anyone else who has this issue because I know this kind of solution isn't present on this forum for CH340 drivers.