Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 [Old Version]

Twelve is a decent product; Ive used in on other machines - but it seemed to be both slower, and lack the built-in vocabulary (particularly medical; Im old, and a lot of my convos involve medical terms). THe learning curve was not real bad; after the first training, I was hitting over 80 percent- and it went higher as I trained it more. I have almost no suggestions to change on this; even if it was the current version.. and since my nerve problems have made it so difficult for me to type, its now doing most of my work. Get it, Train it. Use it. Smile more. What better recommendation can I give?

Let me start off by saying that I had never used speech recognition before Windows Vista, and I had never used Dragon NaturallySpeaking before version 11.5. Ive seen several videos comparing the two programs, but nothing ever in depth enough to give a disabled person a real opportunity to make an informed decision. I now am quite savvy on Windows Speech Recognition, and have had about a months worth of experience with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. There is no comparison, first, in price point; Windows Speech Recognition comes free with Windows 7 (all versions), and I would assume will be included with Windows 8. Dragon comes in many variants ranging in prices from $40.00 for the Home version, to over $500 for the Professional version. My experience with Dragon is specifically the Home and Premium versions, so I will not attempt to compare beyond what I know. Since price could be especially important to some users, we have to give this round to Windows Speech Recognition. Free is free after all. Lets move onward to accuracy. Windows Speech Recognition (from now on referred to as WSR) can be very accurate with a lot of training, and a seriously good microphone, but even so, is not even close to being as accurate as Dragon is right out of the box. Apparently Nuance has dedicated years and resources to making the program as accurate as possible, and they have exceeded expectations. It is surprisingly eerie watching everything you say appear exactly as you say it, with nearly 100% accuracy. Although WSR gets the edge in dictation speed, this point definitely goes to Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Given what I said in the previous paragraph, one might consider that to be the only criteria for choosing between these two contenders, but that would be a wrong assumption, and a dangerous one, if youre looking for more than just dictation. You see, being extraordinarily accurate is, in my opinion, the only thing that Dragon is good at. As a disabled person, I understand that speech recognition must do more for us than just allow us to write legible emails, Tweets, and blogs. It must give us control of our chosen computers. WSR is a true champion in this arena. Although Dragon has some nifty features tied directly to specific Windows programs, I found it difficult just getting it to launch certain programs. If I ask WSR to run a program, and it doesnt quite understand which program Im referring to, it at least puts up a window with multiple suggestions that one can choose from. Dragon, on the other hand, just waits stupidly for something it understands. Dragon apparently cant see all that well, either. If I use it to click the Start Button, and then say the name of the program or document within the visible list, it simply refuses to do anything. In complete opposition, WSR happily launches most programs directly, but given the same Start Button scenario, has no problems seeing the item and selecting it by voice. In the unlikely event that it cannot launch the item, WSR has one more trick up its sleeve--the Show Numbers command, which will put a small number box next to every clickable item. Say the number, then okay, and your item is clicked. This one feature makes WSR indispensable as a computer control program, but theres more. Being able to create macros is an essential part of computer control. The ability to create strings of commands to perform complex functions should be available to all disabled users for a reasonable price. Dragon has this functionality, but only in the Professional version, and as I pointed out, at an extreme cost. In contrast, WSR, through Microsoft, has a downloadable, and free, macro creation utility called Windows Speech Recognition Macros. If you find the creation of macros daunting through that interface, there is another program that you may find useful; Windows Speech Recognition Toolkit. This is not a free program, but the purchase price (around $20.00) makes it a worthwhile addition to speech recognition. It not only simplifies the creation of macros, but it has other useful tools, such as audio transcription, text to speech, profile management, dictionary management, etc. Some may find my last point a bit niggling, and granted, it is more in line with being an annoying lack of functionality than it is a necessary feature. With that said, I find it an incredible oversight in Dragon to make no audible signal letting you know that the program has started to listen. With WSR, every time you say the words start listening, or stop listening, the system makes a sound to let you know that the command has been followed. Within the interface, this can be turned off, or on, so that if you happen to not like the sound, you can dispense with it. In Dragon, I could find no facility for doing something similar. Needless to say, if you happen to not be looking at the computer, and perhaps you start having a conversation with someone, Dragon can start listening and make all sorts of commands happen of which youre completely unaware. I have written this article with WSR. Could the writing have gone smoother under Dragon? Absolutely, by virtue of not having to correct text as often, and if that were the sole merit and sum of the usefulness of speech recognition, then Dragon Naturallyspeaking would be the smart choice for almost every user. It may still be the smart choice for many, but when faced with the desire to have the utmost control over your computer, and at a price tag that is actually affordable, Windows Speech Recognition becomes an option that outshines its pricier opponent.

If Dragon Speak could handle my accent better, I would give it an 8 out of 10. Ive only had it a month and so we are both learning. It is easy to set up and to use but it seems to be a bit of a memory hog. Im running a 64 bit, Windows 7, 4G notebook and a Sound Blaster Headset. I primarily use it with Word, email and some online applications.

Im not sure Im any more impressed with this version than I was with earlier versions. Yes the speech recognition is better than version 2-10, but its still not the greatest thing since sliced bread. Great for creating the initial draft but I found that editing commands were frequently ignored or interpreted as additional text. Menu commands dont work at all with Open Office. Its useful, but not the works great, cant live without it product of the advertisements.

When unable to type following recent shoulder surgery, I used Dragon Naturally Speaking to continue my writing workload for my job. While it does not read my mind, I will say the results were exceptional. My doctor recommended it, and said he had used this product following his shoulder surgery. Bet you cannot tell that I am talking, not typing! Be sure to place the mic very close to the corner of your mouth, and be sure to do the set up. I really like it better than typing because I think better when I am just watching the words show up on the screen. I have used it to fill out forms, spreadsheets, etc. all with great success. I learned how to mouse left handed which helped a lot.

I just bought a new laptop its a Tecra M11-S3440 (Sweet Rig) Pentium Core I5 with 4 GB of RAM 512mb Dedicated Video with my choice of XP, Windows 7 Professional 32 Bit, and Win 7 Professional 64 bit operating system. Since I have a snazzy new laptop I wanted to get the latest edition of Dragon because I figured that theyve had time to optimize it for Windows 7. I want my Windows 7 kept clean so Im only running latest and greatest on it. Im using a Xp Mode Virtual window for all my older programs. The most important part of this review is a rebuttal to those saying that it doesnt work with Windows 7. I first installed a Windows 7 32-bit because Ive heard of too many bugs with programs running on a 64-bit operating system. After installing Win 7 32 Bit I realized that I wanted to turn this laptop into a power machine and run 8gb of ram. Basically my concept is a 3-4gb dedicated to the Win xp Mode and 3-4gb dedicated to Win 7. Windows 7 32 Bit doesnt have the capability to manage that much Ram. So I used the system backup and made an image of the drive on my USB Hard drive. And than a recovery disk on a Dvd. (In case 64 bit didnt work well) and than reinstalled the system in 64Bit mode from the Toshiba install disks. This was a destructive install that re-formatted the hard drive and installed a whole new operating system and a new driver set. By the way Win 7 64 bit is working fine and xp compatibility mode is running all my 32 bit applications without breaking a sweat. The Dragon VS 11 install went very very smoothly. The disk recognized which operating system that I was installing in and made the appropriate installation. I was amazed, I was expecting trouble in the 64 Bit system and it just didnt happen. I did a little bit of training and am impressed by the quality of this program. It really did quite well for only 5-9 minutes of training and no document recognition. Ill probably follow up and edit it later on, to tell you how long it takes to match a well trained version 9( which I had previously). Since there are so many bad reviews I felt that I wanted to rush a review out that this program does an almost flawless install in Windows 7 32-bit edition and 64 bit edition on a clean machine. My definition of Clean machine is that Ive never had a previous version of Dragon running on this machine and the minimum of programs and junk is on this machine. I also have disabled all firewalls and antivirus programs for the install. I should mention that so far this program is much faster than the old version. It seems to do it a little bit differently the screen puts up large swatches of text. The quickness though could be due to the fact that I have a much faster machine. On the other hand Im absolutely amazed because I can talk and talk and talk for a while and then itll just appear on the screen in huge huge patches of text whereas the old program would kind of lag behind the way you were speaking. I suspect that this version is going to be superior to the old version because right now with no training its picking me up very very well. But Ill come back and edit the review a third or fourth or fifth time. My next addition will be in 4-5 days because Im waiting for my 8gb of ram to come in and than Im going to install Dragon on my XP virtual machine. Hey if that works than Ill have to re title the review. I suspect the reason why my installs have been problem free are that I dont have a previous version of Dragon and I also dont have the years of Detritus that many people (including me) pick up in there messy registrys. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Update after 1 week. Im so pleased with Dragon Im crowing. As I mentioned before I was running Dragon on a Windows 7 64 bit system with Xp mode. Unfortunately initially when I installed it in Windows 7 it wouldnt work in Xp mode. So I decided to install the program in Xp Mode, yes two installs on the same system. Flawless install again!! But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. I tried importing my VS 9 profile into Dragon. It was a total disaster for some reason it couldnt recognize the sound system correctly. I couldnt get it to pass voice training, Why I dont know, probably not Dragons fault many variables here. I should mention that a VIRGIN Profile running in Xp mode worked perfectly.So I can say that Dragon works in Xp mode. I find it to be faster in 64 bit Windows 7. I strongly suspect that importing from previous version of Dragon just doesnt work right but again there are too many variables and I really dont want to futz around. But anyway after 1 freeze and a total reboot of the system, I discovered that Dragon Running in Windows 7 would now work in both 7 and Xp Virtual mode without having to start the program in XP. Seamlessly it switched back and forth. This is so convenient that it made up for the disastrous import of the VS 9 files. Dragon recognizes the machine code of the system so I didnt have any problem with the automatic registration. By the way it is doing a really excellent job of dictating even though its only had 5 minutes of training so I dont anticipate much time to get it up to speed.Out of the box with little training it blows the version 9 away.!!

I approached the installation with foreboding because I had read other reviews which were either very positive or very negative. I followed the instructions for installation very carefully, and I failed miserably five times. I was about to send it back to Amazon, but I decided to try once more, and to ignore one of the instructions given by the manufacturer. Voila! The installation worked very smoothly; see more details below. After installing the program it is truly miraculous! On my computer the installation failed on either the third or fourth step. The step recommends that you either do or do not do something while Visual C++ 9 or 10 loads onto your hard drive. When I followed the recommendation the process failed. Finally, when I did the opposite thing installation rapidly proceeded and completed. It is possible that my computer represented a special situation, because I have various versions of Visual C++, Express edition installed on my computer. I have a few other comments to make. If you want really excellent dictation you will need to put in a lot of effort to learn the system. Remember that if you give a command to put DNS into a specific mode and then forget that you have done that, it will create a big mess until you reverse the mode. I am using the program to keep informal notes and to dictate informal e-mails, and it is terrific for that sort of thing. I am hoping that I dont need technical support from Nuance because other reviewers have made very unflattering comments about that support.

I just upgraded from 10 to 11 premium and it seems to work great. it is faster, works better, and makes far less mistakes as version 10. I see a lot of people here complaining about it not working correctly and being buggy, I do see what they are seeing. I did deactivate my antivirus during the install, and my computer has all the windows updates needed before I installed. I also have updated all the installed software to make sure it was all up to date. I have a vista 64 bit system upgraded to windows 7 ultimate. I do know that ultimate has more compatibility than lesser versions. I use an hp system. I am also using the wireless version of the product running it into a usb 2.0 port. At first there were some small issues with the software, but after I used it for about 1 week they all seemed to go away. It seems like a nice upgrade from version 10 and things are better and smoother. I would recommend buying it. I only gave it 4 stars because the software is and always has been less than perfect. I think that it is going to be many years before this type of software works perfectly every time, so if that is what you are expecting you will be disappointed. Also, it takes some patience, so be prepaired to have some...

Ive used every version of Naturally Speaking since V2 (c 1997). This version is somewhat more accurate, but has several bugs--disappointing from Nuance. 1. a random character gets added beyond the dictation. If I delete it, another character pops up. 2. selecting a group of words and dictating over them (if I do not want to use the correct function) often leaves letters of the old phrase or does not space properly. 3. occasionally the correction function appears to get stuck and generates an internal error. I have to close down the program and restart. 4. save user profile often closes the program 5. the playback function on the correction window is frequently misaligned with the text, unlike in prior versions where this was rare. 6. I have not been able to complete additional training--the system crashes prior to saving the new speech files. Overall, V11 is promising, but I would wait until a service pack or revised version is available

I was unsure whether I would be getting the latest version of the product, or not, but when it arrived it was 11.5 and not the 11.0 version stated on the product information. I had resigned myself to not having the latest as I couldnt find a product listing for 11.5 version, but the CD is actually 11.5. Product seems nice, but I havent fully trained it yet.