Pyusb on windows - no backend available
I had a similar issue recently trying to talk to a USB device I am developing. I scoured the web looking for libusb-1.0.dll's and had no luck. I found source code, but nothing built and ready to install. I ended up installing the libusb-win32 binaries, which is the libusb0.dll.
PyUSB will search for libusb-1.0, libusb0, and openUSB backends.
libusb0.dll was already on my system, but something was still not set up right, do PyUSB was not working.
I followed the directions here to download and install the driver using the GUI tools provided to install the filter driver, and the INF wizard. Note, it didn't work until I ran the INF wizard.
I'm pretty new to programming and I've found the lack of clear documentation/examples to string this all together rather frustrating.
I am using Python 2.6.5, libusb-win32-device.bin-0.1.12.1 and pyusb-1.0.0-a0 on a windows XP system and kept receiving ValueError: No backend available.
Since there wasn't any real help on the web for this problem I spent a lot of time finding that ctypes util.py uses the Path variable to find the library file. My path did not include windows\system32 and PYUSB didn't find the library. I updated the path variable and now the USB is working.