works great when it's working great, September 24, 2010

On my machine, Dragon NaturallySpeaking causes a specific problem. Every time I start up my computer, I get an error message: "Failed to launch UI Automation Server". Since this is very annoying, I did some research and discovered that Nuance recommends to deactivate part of the User Account Control (UAC) on Windows as a "solution". I talked to support, and learned that there are no (other) "solutions" available. The problem may occur on Vista as well as Windows 7, in combination with any version of Naturally Speaking, and the exact reason for the problem is unknown.In my mind, a company that recommends turning off an essential security feature of the user's operating system, just so that their programm doesn't keep spitting out error messages, is doing something seriously wrong. According to Nuance, the problem is caused by the part of their program that allows users to voice-control the entire operating system. Even though I don't care about that feature, I still have to...

when Dragon is working efficiently, the speech recognition is very good... With a few stipulations, you should have a fast machine with resources which are dedicated to the program, and not many other programs running at the same time. The software allows you to control the mouse and screen using your voice, however for people who can use the mouse, this is very inefficient... For writing e-mails, blogs, documents, and Amazon reviews this is the best program on the market.here are a few pain points I have:- switching between Dragon and other programs is very slow- Dragon is very slow to launch initially- multitasking with Dragon is very difficult- the Bluetooth headset works fine although a USB headset works much better- sometimes you speak and get no response from the software, you should go to the view options and check the box that allows you to preview the results first, this way you get some faster feedback... By default this is not...

The progress in speech recognition over the years has been mind boggling. 1995 was when I first started using IBM Via Voice and you had to speak each word distinctly. Original Dragon product was called Dragon Dictate and then they changed it to Dragon Naturally Speaking in 1997 and I have been using it ever since, faithfully upgrading to each new version. At that time when you called technical support you could even talk to Dr. Janet Baker, the inventor of the speech recognition and founder of Dragon.With version 4 they started Dragon Naturally Speaking Medical and that helped in that medical terminology was already included albeit several folds the cost of the regular professional Dragon Naturally Speaking.Each version has improved the accuracy and they have not made the product unduly complicated or cluttered, as is the usual tendency with software upgrades. Version 11 of Dragon is slower and needs more resources, I could not run it in Windows 7 under Fusion...