Dragon NS Technical Support

Upgrading to Dragon 9 to Vista OS

Update Release Schedule for Dragon Windows Vista Compatible Version

A Windows Vista Update for Dragon Preferred will be available for download on January 29th. Professional, Medical and Legal versions will be available approximately 45 days later.

Details

All single copy (non-OLP) registered Dragon Preferred, Professional, Medical and Legal version 9 customers can download the Windows Vista update at no charge. All previous versions of Dragon will not support Windows Vista and will require a paid upgrade to the current version.

Note that if a new customer purchases version 9 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and it is not a Vista ready CD, they will need to download the update.

Current customers who would like to update to a Vista compatible version of Dragon 9, will need to have their software registered with Nuance before they may download the update. They may register their software at any time with Nuance.

Download Procedure

Customer goes to Nuance Vista Support News.
Customer selects the Dragon 9 product they are currently using.
- Customer can view the information on the download process, product download sizes and replacement CD ordering.
Customer enters their information and their registered serial number.
- In order to install the Vista Update download, a current serial number is required. Customers may locate their serial number by going to:
  C:\ProgramFiles\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking\Program for Version 9, next open the ereg.ini and at the bottom of this file go to:
  Ser_Num=XXXXX-XXX-XXXX-XXXX-XX.
The system verifies that the serial number is registered.
- If the product is not registered, the system informs them that they need to register their software. A link will be displayed redirecting them to register their product.
An email confirmation is sent to the customer with the download link, installation directions and policies.

Installation Procedure

Vista update will install over Dragon 9, there will be no need to uninstall Dragon 9.
The serial number will stay the same after updating to Windows Vista.
If installation of additional copies is attempted, it will be prevented by the activation server.

Customers that would prefer to install the update with a physical CD may order one for $19.95 by phoning 425-744-1100 or mailing Edward Rosenthal.

Turn off Dragon's Archiving Feature

Through the kindness of one of our fellow Dragon technicians, we have found the way to turn off archiving completely.

This is significant, and that it will prevent the undesired buildup of .dra files, and keep the user profile to a manageable 20-60 MB. Keep in mind, that if you turn off archiving you will not be able to use the Acoustic Optimizer. I've had good experience with the Acoustic Optimizer on my own voice profile, so I think it would be advisable on a new installation to leave archiving in place until the Optimizer has been run, and then manually delete the .dra files that have not been appropriately deleted, and then turn off archiving as follows:

In, go to Options, invoke the Miscellaneous Tab, invoke "Advanced" and check the check box next to "Conserve disk space used by a speech files (for portability)."

A Patch for Dragon NS 7

Nuance announced today that they have made a patch available for Dragon 7. This patch is called Version 7.2. Links to the patch are listed in the technical notes (TIB 4600), which you'll want to read closely before attempting an installation.

Using Dragon 5.0 with Windows XP

Generally, there isn't much that needs to be done to make Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 5.0 compatible with the Windows XP operating system.

The basic steps that must be completed is to install a copy of SAPI 4 in the correct directory on Windows XP. This is because Windows XP includes and supports SAPI 5, but Dragon NaturallySpeaking requires SAPI 4 components for operation. (We've seen no difficulties on test systems where both SAPI 4 and SAPI 5 components have been installed correctly).

Process:

Either prior to installing Dragon, or prior to creating your initial voice file a copy of SAPI 4 must be installed (Windows XP has SAPI 5 installed by default) to your hard drive.

Here's how to install:

Prior to installing Dragon browse the Dragon NaturallySpeaking CD and locate the file \redist\spchapi.exe.
Double-click on spchapi.exe to install SAPI 4.0a. (This is a Microsoft redistributable file containing all the required SAPI files, and on other operating systems it is installed automatically when you install Dragon.)
After running spchapi.exe, you should be able to install Dragon as normal.
You may now complete the New User Wizard to initialize Dragon, or open a transferred voice file.

You should find that Dragon operates without difficulty on the Windows XP operating system. If you find any aberrant behavior, I would appreciate being advised so, that we may troubleshoot and forward the information to the folks at Nuance.

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or outstanding issues-Ed.

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