Why is pydot unable to find GraphViz's executables in Windows 8?

Question

I have GraphViz 2.32 installed in Windows 8 and have added C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Graphviz2.32\\bin to the System PATH variable. Still pydot is unable to find its executab

Answer 1

Some things to know about graphviz:

1. graphviz is not only a python module, it's also a standalone program. I believe you need both to make graphviz to work.
2. The standalone graphviz program was originally developed by AT&T, open sourced, then abandoned. The current maintainers of the package forgot to include Windows registry entries so Python can find the program executable.
3. Line 620 of pydotplus\graphviz.py includes a backup path to look for graphviz if it isn't found in the registry. It uses the old ATT file path. Update the file path to what is on your machine (you will need to have administrator privileges) and graphviz should work with pydotplus.

Example:

# Just in case, try the default... path = r"C:\Program Files (x86)\Graphviz2.38\bin"