I don't know what to do at this point. I'm running Maya 2015 sp5 and Houdini 13.0.615 on my windows 7 home computer. the Houdini engine plugin loads just fine on this system. On my windows 8.1 laptop I have the same software but different results. No matter what I do it will not load. \\ Error line 1: The specified procedure cannot be found (houdiniEngine). I looked through the forum I've tried changing the environment variables for the system and for Maya, I believe I am doing it correctly but at this point I really don't know If I am missing something. I need help. Could it be the difference between the operating systems? works fine on windows 7 home but not on my windows 8.1 home.

v/r
ReddMann7

The plugin should be able to load on Windows 8 as well. Have you tried placing $HFS/bin in the beginning of the PATH environment variable (before you run Maya)? There might be something installed on your Windows 8 machine that's conflicting with some Houdini's DLLs. For example, do you happen to have OpenCL installed on the Windows 8 machine?

Thank you for replying to me. I'm not real computer savvy, I'm learning as I go, with that being said I can follow instruction fairly well. Where exactly would I go to place $HFS/bin could you please give me a step by step to do that. And how would I know if I had Open CL installed and if so can I just go to the control panel and un-install it. I hope I don't sound like a complete idiot. Again thank you for your time.

ReddMann7
Where exactly would I go to place $HFS/bin could you please give me a step by step to do that.

Here are a good list of steps for setting the environment variables at the system level:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000549.htm [computerhope.com]

You would want to edit the PATH environment variable to include the Houdini bin directory to the beginning of the list. The Houdini bin directory is something like:
C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 13.0.xxx\bin
Remember to put a semicolon( ; ) between what you add, and what was already in PATH.

You can also try setting it from inside Maya by running this MEL command:
putenv PATH (“CProgram Files/Side Effects Software/Houdini 13.0.xxx/bin; ” + `getenv PATH`)

This solves the conflict in most cases.

ReddMann7
And how would I know if I had Open CL installed and if so can I just go to the control panel and un-install it.

One way to check is take a look inside the directory:
C:\Windows\System32
There would be a DLL called: OpenCL.dll

It might be listed in the Add/Remove Programs in control panel too.

OK I'll get to it, and let you know how it goes. Thank you again.

I included the Houdini bin directory in the beginning of the path like you said and it worked. Thank you for everything.