Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 Student Edition [Old Version]

This product could hold the secrets of the ages but it is worthless if you cannot access it! My Mother and I are both teachers and our workloads are piling up exponentially. We were so excited when we heard about this product because it seemed to be the answer to a prayer. It is not. It is the beginning of a new nightmare wrapped in a gift box of red tape and corporate misdirection. My Mother works with a PC and I use a Mac. I was waiting for her to install hers before I threw down the cash for the Mac version (at twice the price). It has been unbelievably complicated once the product was obtained the hoops one had to jump through had only just begun. There are games afoot such as the search for the serial code but wait...lo and behold the serial code is not on the box as one would expect. The serial code must be open sesamed through endless e-mails to determine Dragon Premium Speaking customer worthiness. The frustration is unimaginable. It has even frustrated me and I havent purchased the product. Apparently the $99 one pays for this product is for entry into a lottery to see if you can use this product. Customer service is completely rude at the worse and at the least uninformed. I will not be purchasing this product for Mac because I dont have weeks to waste on the hope that someone somewhere could give me access to a product that I would pay for. Dragon is the perfect name for this product, as there seems to be a virtual dragon that prevents anyone from accessing what is no doubt a golden product.

As other reviewers have said, it is impossible to verify the software for the student edition. Had to return it to amazon after many failed emails and calls to try get it verified. Worthless if I cant use it!

Never worked correctly

Updated: 5/25 Probably the worst software experience I have ever had. Waited three days to get a serial number. Had to order a new headset as the one included is GARBAGE (ill fitting and cumbersome-it kept sliding off my head.) Spent the next 10 days trying to make this work for me to no avail. It is amazingly frustrating, a printed user guide would have been very helpful (the 108 page manual is available if you hunt through their website, but you cant read it and keep the screen clear to practice.)Could not open anything other than straight Windows programs like WORD, Outlook and Excel. for some reason, my wireless connection key kept being clicked off when I was using it! It could not open my Yahoo email inbox! I do alot of legal research for school, it could not begin to find its way through court citations in either search or dictation mode. I use Open Office for work and that was almost funny...however,neither my professors or boss would find the quality of work I was able to turn out using Dragon even slightly amusing. I ordered this as I have a hand nerve issue and thought it would be very helpful. Major headaches and wasted hours are not helpful. I would have been better off spending $100 on additional wrist braces and painkillers to ease my discomfort. Am going to try to get a refund.

works very good, quality product, and fast service, thank you

I normally do not rate a product because of a problem outside of the functionality of the product itself. But the verification process that Dragon has for the Student Edition needs to be changed. It simply pisses off a customer who just dropped $100 on their software. You cannot install the product without a serial number. You need to submit verification to a third party website to get the serial number, if there is a problem of any sort, they do not respond in a timely fashion - if at all. If Dragon was wise, they should allow you to at least install the product and have it functional for 30 days. This will allow you to use the product until you can get by the labyrinth of requirements to get the serial number. This way you can use the product when it arrives at your door. After 5 days of sheer frustration, I returned the software and I am using the native speech recognition in Windows 7. Nuance is $100 poorer for it and I will never buy another one of their products until they change this horrible process to install their product.

Have a computer that was new 5 years ago. I loaded Dragon, provided documents, did training and worked through the tutorial. The first document I tired to create was a test document. It hung up so I closed Dragon and opened it again -- I started creating a document again and got a BLUE SCREEN. The recommendation from Microsoft was that I remove the software. So I did. But I am not that disappointed - though I am out my experimental investment. Dragon was so slow in recording that I could say a complete paragraph before it could finish the first sentence. I cant write that way -- as a fiction writer I need to be fluid and I can wait for the computer to catch up with me. The advertisement said Dragon would be 3 times faster - that would be very true if you cannot type. I was hoping for a different mechanism for typing -- I am on the computer all day at work. This was not the answer for me. I also purchased a better headset -- it did not function at all with Dragon.

I bought the student version of Drangon Naturally Speaking for my grandson who lives with me. I called Nuance on Friday about getting the serial number and she said to follow the instructions on the product. I sent in the required information yesterday (9/11/10) and am still waiting for the serial number. I called them today and got no help. It seems like Im going to go through some of the hoops that another writer talked about. Why they have to make this such a big deal is beyond me.

I have to admit I was a bit nervous ordering the student/teacher version of Dragon, given all the negative reviews because of the difficulties that people had activating this product. But as I sit here writing this review using Dragon NaturallySpeaking premium 11 student edition, which took less than 30 min. to install and activate, and extremely glad that I gave it a chance. Im not sure why others have had so much difficulty, but I certainly did not. Please note that this version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking requires proof of academic status either as a school staff person or a student, without verifying the status you will not be able to activate it. I would highly recommend this version of this product to other school staff members and students.

While Ive recently gone back to school through an online college program! I found that my typing skills were not able to keep up with my thought processes. This program is allowed me to save substantial amount of time typing reports and as responding to classmates in classroom forums. Since using Dragon my reports and other materials for class has improved while reducing the need to recheck for missing or lost words that my typing skills could not keep up with my thoughts.