General Troubleshooting

Sore throat

If you have a cold or sore throat

WARNING: Do not use dictation if your throat is sore, or you find speaking at all uncomfortable or painful.

If you have a sore throat, stop using Dictation Engine until the soreness disappears. If your sore throat persists, stop using Dictation Engine until you have consulted with your physician.

If you have a cold and your voice has changed, Dictation Engine might have difficulty understanding your voice. Make sure that Dictation Engine doesn’t get used to your voice with a cold.


Incompatible sound cards

Incompatibilities with sound card drivers

Sound card drivers sometimes have incompatibilities in them that interfere with speech recognition. Some symptoms of sound card bugs are:

· Hangs in the Microphone Setup Wizard.
· The Microphone Setup Wizard is unable to adjust the record level of the sound card.
· Adjusting the record level doesn’t have any effect.
· Once in awhile the computer hangs while speech recognition is listening.
· Speech recognition’s icon changes to “listening” and remains there for about ten seconds after Microsoft Dictation plays a recording of a word.

If you are encountering these problems, you should try downloading a new version of your sound card driver from your manufacturer’s web site. Sometimes shutting down Windows and restarting fixes the problem.

Some sound card drivers support full duplex audio which occasionally causes problems. One symptom of this is that speech recognition’s icon changes to “listening” and remains there for about ten seconds after Microsoft Dictation plays a recording of a word. You can turn off full duplex by:

1 Click on “Settings” in the “Start” menu.
2 Select “Control Panel.”
3 In the Control Panel, double click on “System.”
4 In the System Properties Dialog, select the “Device Manager” tab.
5 Find the “Sound, video and game controllers” item in the list, and click the plus (“+”) in front of it. This expands the list to show all of your sound cards.
6 Double-click your sound card. This brings up a properties dialog box.
7 Select the “Settings” tab.
8 If your sound card supports full duplex you’ll see an option to turn it on or off. Turn if off and press OK.
9 Restart  Dictation Pad.

Speech recognition uses a special feature of some sound card drivers called “low priority.” This allows sounds to play while speech recognition is listening. Some sound card drivers have a bug with “low priority” that will cause speech recognition to crash or stop working when a sound is played. If you are encountering these problems you might want to disable low priority. Modifying the registry is dangerous. A mistake might cause Windows to stop working. If you are not comfortable modifying the registry then do not try this. To disable low priority:

1 Click on “Run…” the “Start” menu.
2 Type in “regedit” and press OK. This will bring up the “Registry Editor” program.
3 Click on the plus (“+”) in front of “HKEY_CURRENT_USER” to expand the list.
4 Click on the plus (“+”) in front of “
Software” to expand the list. (This is on the list that appeared when you expanded “HKEY_CURRENT_USER”.)
5 Click on the word “Microsoft” under the “Software” list, so that it’s highlighted.
6 In the menu, select “Edit”, “New”, followed by “Key.” This creates a new entry under the “Microsoft” list.
7 Type in “SpeechAPI”. Press Enter.
8 In the menu, select “Edit”, “New”, followed by “DWORD Value.” This creates a new value under “SpeechAPI”.
9 Type in “UseLowPriority”. Press Enter.
10 Shut down speech recognition and restart it. Speech recognition will no longer use low-priority. You may have to go through the Microphone Setup Wizard again and readjust your microphone volume.

You can re-enable low priority by:

1 Find the “UseLowPriority” entry and select it.
2 A dialog will appear asking you if you wish to delete the entry.
3 Make sure that you have only selected the “UseLowPriority” value for deleting. Deleting the wrong registry key can cause Windows to stop working.
4 Answer “Yes” to delete the registry.
5 Shut down speech recognition and restart it. Speech recognition will no longer use low-priority. You may have to go through the Microphone Setup Wizard again and readjust your microphone volume.

Manually fixing the volume control

Manually fixing the volume control

If you have not tried the normal microphone setup wizard for Microsoft Dictation then you should do so now. The microphone setup wizard will correct problems with most sound cards. This help topic is designed in case the wizard fails, and you must adjust your microphone settings manually.

Here are the steps to follow:

1 Double-click the speaker icon in your taskbar.
2 If you don’t have one then you need to turn the feature on in the control panel. Double-click the “Multimedia” control panel, and click the “Show volume control on the taskbar.” Now double-click the speaker icon in your taskbar.

Once the “Volume Control” applet has appeared:

1 Select the “Options” menu and make sure the “Advanced Controls” menu item is checked. If the menu item is disabled then you don’t need to do anything.

Check the playback volume:

1 Select the “Options” menu and then “Properties.”
2 In the properties dialog, make sure that the right “Mixer device” is selected. If you don’t know which one you’re using and there’s more than one choice, then you will need to repeat all of the following steps for each “Mixer device.”
3 Click on the “Playback” radio button. Make sure that all of the check-boxes in the “Show the following volume controls” list box are checked.
4 Press “OK.”
5 Look at the first vertical slider for the volume control. It’s usually called “
Volume Control.” Make sure that the slider is not all the way at the bottom, and that “Mute” is not checked.
6 Find the slider named “Wave,” or “
Wave Out.” Make sure that the slider is someplace near the middle or above, and that “Mute” is not checked.
7 If there’s a slider named “
Microphone” then make sure that the slider is set to the bottom, and that it is muted. If you don’t do this you might hear a loud whining when speech recognition starts listening.

Check the recording volume:

1 Select the “Options” menu and then “Properties.”
2 In the properties dialog, make sure that the right “Mixer device” is selected. If you don’t know which one you’re using and there’s more than one choice, then you will need to repeat all of the following steps for each “Mixer device.”
3 Click on the “Recording” radio button. Make sure that all of the check-boxes in the “Show the following volume controls” list box are checked.
4 Press “OK.”
5 Find the slider named “Microphone.”
Make sure the slider is someplace near the middle and that the checkbox is selected.
6 Make sure the check-boxes on the other sliders are not selected, or speech recognition may recognize from your CD-player, etc.
7 If there’s an “Advanced” button under the “Microphone” slider then click it. A dialog will pop up. If the dialog has options for “Automatic gain” then you should make sure they’re checked and press OK. Most sound cards need these checked, although if your microphone volume is too loud you may need to come back later and turn them off.

Check the “other” volume:

1 Select the “Options” menu and then “Properties.”
2 In the properties dialog, make sure that the right “Mixer device” is selected. If you don’t know which one you’re using and there’s more than one choice then you will need to repeat all of the following steps for each “Mixer device.”
3 Click on the “Other” radio button. Make sure that all of the check-boxes in the “Show the following volume controls” list box are checked. If the “Other” radio is button is disabled then don’t do the next steps in this section.
4 Press “OK.”
5 Find the slider named “Microphone.”
Make sure the slider is someplace near the middle and that the checkbox is selected.
6 Make sure the check-boxes on the other sliders are not selected, or speech recognition may recognize from your CD-player, etc.
7 If there’s an “Advanced” button under the “Microphone” slider then click it. A dialog will pop up. If the dialog has options for “Automatic gain” then you should make sure they’re checked and press OK. Most sound cards need these checked, although if your microphone volume is too loud you may need to come back later and turn them off.

Turn on speech recognition and test:

1 Turn on speech recognition from “Voice Explorer Dictation” and speak some text into a document.
2 As you speak, some text must appear.
3 If you raise your volume all the way and nothing works, your microphone might be incompatible with your sound card. Check with your sound card manufacturer.
3 If speech recognition complains that you’re speaking too loudly, lower the microphone volume. (If you have both a “recording” and “other,” lower both volumes to make sure.)
4 If speech recognition still doesn’t work after this, check with your sound card manufacturer.

Dictation never gets a specific word right

Microsoft Engine never gets a specific word right

If Microsoft Engine is not recognizing a specific word, try the following:

  1. In 'Dictation' menu item choose “Add/remove word.”
  2. Type in the word.
  3. If the word doesn’t exist, then you’ll have the option to add it. Do so now.
  4. If the word exists, dictation may be listening for the wrong pronunciation. Using the lexicon wizard to modify the word’s pronunciation so it’s the same as what you speak. The word should recognize after this. (To change the pronunciation of punctuation, such as period, type the punctuation symbol followed by back-slash, followed by the name. Ex: “.\period”, “,\comma”, “!\exclamation-point”, “?\question-mark”, “;\semicolon”, “@\at-sign”.)
  5. If it still doesn't work then see if the substituted word is written as if the microphone is hard of hearing. Then it is  problem of your Microphone and Volume Control.
  6. If it still doesn't work increase the accuracy level and use correct mistakes or correction window. You will be doing a lot of good to the engine.

Dictation makes a lot of mistakes

Dictation Engine hears me, but doesn’t get the right word very often

If Microsoft Dictation is not very accurate, you might:

1 Re-run the microphone setup to make sure your microphone is set up properly.
2 Do some more training.
3 If you are not using a close-talk microphone then consider using one.

To do more training:

  1. Start the voice explorer dictation pad.
  2. Select the “Dictation” menu item.
  3. In the “Dictation”menu, select the “Speaker Training” tab
  4. Before you start check if you are the selected speaker using "Who is speaker?"
  5. If you are not selected, cancel the current training wizard and enroll yourself using "Speaker New"
  6. Input your user name. Press "OK"
  7. This will automatically display your speaker training wizard.
  8. Follow the wizard’s instructions.


Dictation may be expecting a different pronunciation than what you’re speaking:

  1. Start the voice explorer dictation pad.
  2. Select the “Dictation” menu item.
  3. In the “Dictation”menu, select the “Add/remove word” tab
  4. Type in the word.
  5. If the word doesn’t exist, then you’ll have the option to add it. Do so now.
  6. If the word exists, dictation may be listening for the wrong pronunciation. Using the lexicon wizard to modify the word’s pronunciation so it’s the same as what you speak. The word should recognize after this. (To change the pronunciation of punctuation, such as period, type the punctuation symbol followed by back-slash, followed by the name. Ex: “.\period”, “,\comma”, “!\exclamation-point”, “?\question-mark”, “;\semicolon”, “@\at-sign”.)

Dictation doesn't hear anything

Check Microphone