Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 [Old Version]

I love the fact that I dont have to type my papers, but the program took some getting use to. The supplied headphones did not work well because it distorted the speech to such an extent that the program got the words wrong. I then bought an Andrea stereo headset and this was 90% better. Now I plan to upgrade my program but havent done so because the manufacturer wants full price. I paid full price upon original purchase. The upgrade should give the consumer a price break. I would have updated annually otherwise. As it is Im holding back on this one.

I have used voice recognition software at work for the past 6 years and have really liked it. I wanted something at home to allow me to take notes while I read without stopping to write it down. Im in the medical field and had concerns about how well this would work with all the specialized vocabulary, but it works great. I wasnt about to spend 1500 for the professional medical version and Im glad I didnt. Its easy to use and overall money well spent for me. I only use the product for a specific purpose so I cant talk much about all the features, but so far it has worked great. My only complaint is that the headset is uncomfortable.

Dragon has no peer! Its simply the only way to obtain accurate voice-to-text results. Along with a top-of-the-line OCR product, there is no better tool for creating textual answers for my customers technical questions. My job is to provide technical support for embedded systems software tools. It is demanding on several levels, ... not the least of which, is the need to communicate accurately. Dragon can type ten times faster than I can. I would be much less productive without it. The use of an older version has saved me money without taking anything away from the quality. I could never use ALL the bells and whistles provided by Nuance. After a certain point in a products development, the foundation has become polished and perfected. At that point, improvements come from the extra features developed to meet more specific needs of niche buyers. With the Dragon, the basics are honed to a fine edge!

I just got my Dragon version 11 over Labor Day weekend, and have been using it with my computer. I used version 9 five years ago and found it too frustrating with all of the inaccuracies. Recently, my orthopedic surgeon recommended version 11, as his advice to me was to save your hands for something more meaningful than computer work, such as playing a musical instrument, as I do suffer from repetitive stress injuries from all the computer typing. I am thrilled with this version of Dragon, and almost right out-of-the-box, I was able to dictate an entire recipe into a Word document with only two or three minor mistakes. By the way, I have dictated my entire review here using just my voice.

11.5 is the best version there is. v.12 is a mess and I never trust brand new software (v.13). Im an AT practitioner and train approximately 25 clients a year on Dragon. The only drawback is Win 8 and 10. It does not work well on 8 and I dont think is compatible with 10 at all. It is hard to find this version so I usually order more than one at once.

I am envious of the reviewers who had no trouble with installation. I believed, since I have a new, clean Windows 7 64 bit system, that I too would have such an experience. Outside of the fact that everything Ive ordered recently from Amazon seems to have some delay in shipment, I am extremely frustrated with this product. I used Dragon 9 on my old laptop to dictate my patient notes. While not flawless, it saved me several hours a night on charts. Upon purchase of a newer laptop, I could not (nor could anyone else) get Dragon 9 to work. After reading the reviews here and elsewhere, I ordered Version 11 Premium. 6 hours later I am still unable to install the product due to various Errors (many of which appear to be searching for a file on my C drive). My IT savvy friends are unable to install the product. Nuance Customer Service tells me there must be some other program preventing the install. Perhaps that may be true, but its hardly service to tell me theres a problem and not offer a solution. I am also not pleased that the software arrived without a manual - when I pay nearly $200 for a product I expect something more than a trifold card with quick and dirty instructions on it. The box does not even appear to be a standard manufacturers. I have faith that the seller will right things for me, but I suspect this will mean returning the item (and yes, I am aware that Windows 7 comes with its own VR software, but it doesnt work well either Ive learned).

I havent had a chance to use this much, yet. So far, though, I have been happy with it. I didnt realize when I purchased it, thought, that the headset was not USB so that makes it a bit inconvenient. Otherwise, it seems to be working well. With more practice, Im sure it will make my life much easier.

Have been using DNS since v 2.xx. I know folks have had problems with DNS installations. FWIW, over the years I have had nothing but smooth sailing with DNS installation(s) and operation. Just upgraded from v9.5, which I have been using with great success up until I tried to move it all over to a WIN 7 based machine. DNS v9.5 was amazingly accurate right out of the box and with a little training it moved quickly into the level of indispensable tool. DNS v 11.5 is even better and faster than v9.5...and I am having a hard time believing that traiing can make it any better than it already it is - near perfect. I was looking to move to v 12.0, but found v 11.5 for $50.00 and could not see a justification for the additional 80.00-100.00 that v 12 would require. Very happy with DNS v 11.5. And, the price made it even better.

I recently bought a new computer (64-bit, Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2300 CPU @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s), 8 GB of RAM) with Win 7 Pro installed. Id been thinking about trying Dragon for a while and decided this would be the computer to try it with. Ordered from Amazon and it was delivered promptly. I installed it for the first time on 6/2/2011 and went through the registration process successfully. When I tried to run it I got an error: NaturallySpeaking isnt installed completely. Please try reinstalling. When I clicked details I got this additional information: One or more registry settings are corrupt and your registry permissions prevent Dragon NaturallySpeaking from correcting them. Please run Dragon NaturallySpeaking Setup and select the Repair option. I followed that suggestion and again got the notice at the end that installation was successful. But got the same error when I started the program. I went to the online support page on their site and filled out a support ticket with all pertinent information. On 6/3 I got a response giving detailed instructions for taking a screenshot of the error message and pasting it into Word and uploading it to them. I had already pasted the full text of the error message into my support message, and I had uploaded the dragon log file that also gave the full text of the error message, but I took a screenshot and uploaded it. Their next response explained how to set the computer to start up in diagnostic mode and told me to do that and install Dragon. Followed the instructions and got an error that Windows Installer Service couldnt be Accessed. I reported this back through their online support system. And support basically went quiet on me for five days. I continued to experiment with the installation, with no luck. While doing this I noticed an app that was loaded that their setup complained about...it couldnt stop it and wanted me to do so. It was Acresso Software Manager, which it turns out was installed by the Dragon InstallShield setup program. Several days later I started getting pop-up ads on my computer that I traced to this app. On 6/8, after submitting several more online updates and sending several emails to support asking if they were going to respond, I called the support line and spent over an hour online with a very nice support person in the Philippines. His English was good and I could understand him. He had me change some registry settings and reinstall. He also sent me an exe to run to fix an issue with GUIDs. After an hour of trying solutions that didnt help, he emailed me a link to download another build of DNS 11 that he said would fix the issue. I downloaded the 2.3 GB EXE and first ran it in repair mode as suggested. Same thing. Then did a full uninstall and reinstall...same thing. I reported all this to online support and uploaded the log again. I got the original canned response to set startup to run in Diagnostic mode, with the addition of explaining how to first set up an admin account. Did that, uninstalled and reinstalled. Same error when trying to run the program. Ive sent several more emails and online updates in the four days since that, but have had no response from support. While reading other reviews this morning I came across references to Windows Voice Recognition. Id forgotten it existed and hadnt tried it for years. Figured out how to activate it on Win 7 and did so...that took about five minutes and it worked fine. Decided to try it on my Asus netbook, to see how it works on a lower-powered computer (running Win 7) and it worked fine there too. Perhaps not as well as DNS 11 would work IF DNS 11 would work for me, but at least it worked with close to 100% recognition. I decided to uninstall and return the DNS 11 app to Amazon. This is the first thing I have returned to Amazon and wasnt sure just what to expect. It was absolutely simple and a model for all other companies. Clicked a button, selected a reason, clicked to print the UPS label, and that was it. I couldnt believe they even paid the return postage. Class act. Nuance outsources their support to a company with the rather inaccurate name RightNow. I think RightNow needs to put a little more effort into setting up their online support system...there is really no excuse for going four or five days without responding to an update on an ongoing problem.

this review is being written using Dragon natural speaking which I will not make any corrections. Please forgive any nonsensical words or rhetorically incorrect sentences. Although I find the software to be effective, it is generally off a bit, requires you to reread or proofed everything that you write. As youll see in this review, there are words that will be shown that will be out of context or inappropriate. They will always be spelled correctly, however. Sometimes the software will hang up or freeze which can be quite frustrating. I am utilizing the Andrea NC - 185 MZM had some and I also purchased their training CD which I found to be just okay. Conceptually conceptually, the idea is fabulous and very addicting. If youre okay with proofreading every sentence and finding that a lot of the sentences are grammatically incorrect, this is a decent product. Ive been using it for about a week and a half and still trying to make it work properly. Which are reading here is after weeks of tweaking and is still not right. Had I type this rather than using Dragon it would have been dead on right and pretty close to being just as fast. The reason I bring up this speed is by the time you have to go back through and proofread everything you might as well if typed it. New update: (typed) the software on this product is extremely large and even, and unfortunately too frequently, locks up my 2012 Window 7 HP desktop with maximum memory capacity. I bring this up to warn you not to buy this if you have a computer that is a few years old or doesnt have a ridiculous amount of memory capacity. My CPU runs at 40-60 percent usage with Dragon. Personally, Id never consider using this on a laptop. To reemphasize, while the theory and concept behind this product seems amazing, the ugly truth is that this software has a lot of bugs and is a huge power drain to your system. Caveat Emptor. *** New *** Never address your emails until you finalize your email content. While writing your 80 percent accurate, unedited email, Dragon may pickup a word that sounds like send and POOF off your email goes. Whoops.