Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 13 (Discontinued)

My Windows 8.1 Dragon Naturally Speaking Installation ExperienceI recently purchased a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) - Premium Edition.I have a top of the line ASUS sound card in my PC and it is configured to do some special things so I do not want to change any of its settings. I chose the USB version of the Koss Headphone set that Amazon offers in connection with DNS in hope that I would be able to avoid doing any fooling around with my ASUS sound card settings.I am very pleased to report that it did work as hoped and I suspect that I'm not the only one who might have similar concerns. I'm writing this to walk you through what I did and what happened as I went through the DNS installation process with regard to the headphone installation.I open the DNS product box and read the quick start guide it contained (I ordered the PC disk version of the product). The first thing it said I should do was to connect the microphone. They supplied one with two mini RCA connectors and provided a device to convert the two connectors toa single dual connector. I used neither as I wanted to go with the plug and play USB interface.While the USB headset is a plug and play device it was necessary for the system to do a software set up. I wasn't expecting that. Had I been I would have first done a System Image Backup so that I could revert my system to the way it was before starting the installation. As it turned out, It didn't matter, but it would have been the right thing for me to have done. You can do a System Image Backup by going to Control Panel -> System and Security -> File History -> System Image Backup. I'm working with Windows 8.1. The System Image Backup click-on option is in the bottom left corner of the File History screen. I did the System Image Backup as soon as the USB headset had been installed and before beginning installation of the DNS software.Once the system had installed and configured the plug-and-play USB microphone/headphone related software for my headset, I again went to the Control Panel and clicked on Hardware and Sound and then under "Sound" I clicked on Manage Audio Devices. That brings up a window with several tabs.Under the Playback tab, I found, as hoped, my ASUS audio device was still selected as the default. Using the slider on the left of the window I went down to the bottom of the playback devise list and found my newly installed "USB PnP Sound Device." Underneath it was the word "enabled." (I'm now doing this from memory as I did not record the process.) I double clicked on the PnP list entry and another window appeared. There was a "Configure" option/button and I clicked on that. The system took some time and configured the device. There was also a "Test" option button and I clicked on that and then I heard test sounds in my headphones. I believe at this time "enabled" changed to "Ready." It was later when I went back to the Playback tab that I notice that it now read "Ready." I think it is important that it read "Ready" so that DNS (and potentially other software) can find and use it.Next I went to the Recording tab and found, in my case that the PnP headset was already set to be the Default Device.I did not try to make the PnP device the default. I left the ASUS audio device as the system default. I was hoping that the DNS software would give me a choice of which device(s) I wanted to use for playback and record - and it did and I chose the USB headset PnP device and it worked just fine with DNS even though it was not the device configured as the default device. Application software, if so programmed, can do that.If your USB PnP microphone does not show up as the system default then you can try a process similar to what I did for the USB playback (earphones) and hopefully that will work for you.Now a short set of comments about the installation of the DNS software. Be patient it does take a long time for it to install from the CD. Initially I thought something might have gone wrong and the reading of the disk hard gotten into some kind of a loop, but not so. After a good while (5 minutes? - I didn't time it - but it seemed even longer than that ) the progress bar showed some progress. Then it sat there a good while and again showed some progress, and on and on. Be really patient - I don't recall installing any application software from a CD that took nearly as long. I went away several times just to keep myself away from the keyboard and the computer and doing something stupid to interrupt the installation process. Eventually, it finished and all was well.During the installation process there was a choice I made that I would do differently had I the opportunity to do it over again. I was asked about my vocabulary was it "medium?" or "extensive?" (The ?-marks mean I'm not sure if that was the exact word) The recommended option was "medium." In my case, "extensive" would probably have been a better choice. At this time, I want DNS to do transcriptions of my voice recordings about things related to gardening. Plans, instructions, observations, photograph specific information. For that I did not think I needed an "extensive" vocabulary. But if I broaden my use of the device that may not remain true. I know there are ways to add words to DNS, but I don't know what was in the more extensive vocabulary that I failed to select and it is not apparent that I have a way of adding it in post installation. I could probably reinstall the software, but I'm not ready to take that option yet.

Whatever you do, Do Not Buy this product!I'm going to do what others have done and write this review without AutoCorrect while using the software. I will correct any mistakes on my hand but not mistakes purely caused by the software. What a surprise, that there is a mistake in this very sentence I was writing. I clearly said "on my end" for the record I just typed that but going back to the dictation software. I could probably stop you right there "I just said stop the review" but I think as you will see this software is unbelievably poor. Maybe other reviewers have's stock in the company because this has been riddled with Harrison today but. (errors since the day I bought it). I wasn't originally planning to do a review like this but I think this is a great example of what a piece of junk the software is, so I'll keep doing that when you see me use parentheses, that is me typing what I was actually trying to say.Let me give you the most egregious error the software has made yet. Today I was typing an email to my boss and was midsentence and attempted to say the words "and since I" but what does Opera do (did the software do)? It thought I said "send email" that is a command. Can you guess what that command does? Will that was pretty embarrassing thank God it wasn't a client. If I were to keep using the software, which I certainly will not, I would have to names from an email that I'm applying to and then put them back in because this is way too high a risk to take with clients in the professional world.In case you're wondering I did the whole thing where you read to it lead learner language bought the Koss CS100 Speech Recognition Computer Headset. I did it all. I've been using it for a month, letting it supposedly adapt to my way of speaking, I don't mumble I don't have a speech impediment I speak like a normal person, the software just does not work it's quite clear.Please trust me when I say you will waste so much more time fixing errors and you will save by not typing. I would only recommend this software to people who hunt and peck as they call it, i.e. use two fingers to type. Anyone who can type properly will not save time with this junk software.Another issue is that when linking to Microsoft Outlook, Outlook will quickly realize the software is slowing it down and disable. (disable it). Perhaps that is a Microsoft issue but it will certainly affect you because it took me about 30 minutes to figure how to reenable it.I will close this review by showing you additional examples of mistakes the software made today. So these mistakes were made over the past two hours not over weeks of time just in the past two hours all these mistakes are made:Tried to say "exclamation point, which is a command. It wrote "Exhalation point"And I never saw her again became "nurse overage" (something I’ve never said in my life. I have never dictated the word “nurse” to dragon.John wants us to come to New Jersey next week became John once us to come to New Jersey next week (how often do people say that phrase? Wouldn't people be saying person "wants" us to come like 999 times out of 1000? When would you say person "once" us to come? This is an example of what garbage this software is.Absolutely was @za - again something I've never said or written in my life. Is @za more common than absolutely? Please trust me when I say I do not have morals (marbles - this is fkg amazing isn't it????) in my mouth I've even come to the point where I enunciate so clearly that I sound like a psychopath and before you make a comment, yes I tried speaking naturally in the beginning which is what they say to do.Them both was The boatAnyway I'm not mad at you and Anyway I'm not paying youThere were two more that I can't figure out what I had originally said.