Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 [Old Version]

I just bought a new laptop it's 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 they've had time to optimize it for Windows 7. I want my Windows 7 kept clean so I'm only running latest and greatest on it. I'm 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 doesn't work with Windows 7. I first installed a Windows 7 32-bit because I've 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 doesn't 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 didn't 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 didn't 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. I'll 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 I've 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 I'm absolutely amazed because I can talk and talk and talk for a while and then it'll 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 it's picking me up very very well. But I'll come back and edit the review a third or fourth or fifth time. My next addition will be in 4-5 days because I'm waiting for my 8gb of ram to come in and than I'm going to install Dragon on my XP virtual machine. Hey if that works than I'll have to re title the review.I suspect the reason why my installs have been problem free are that I don't have a previous version of Dragon and I also don't have the years of Detritus that many people (including me) pick up in there messy registrys.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Update after 1 week.I'm so pleased with Dragon I'm 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 wouldn't 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 couldn't recognize the sound system correctly. I couldn't get it to pass voice training, Why I don't 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 doesn't work right but again there are too many variables and I really don't 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 didn't have any problem with the automatic registration.By the way it is doing a really excellent job of dictating even though it's only had 5 minutes of training so I don't anticipate much time to get it up to speed.Out of the box with little training it blows the version 9 away.!!

When you buy software like this the obvious intention is to make your life a little easier and have things done a little quicker where time counts, "time is money", is a reality. But if you're expecting to come right out of the gate running twice or three times as fast as you have been your expectations are too high. Like anything that's new, (new to me anyway), there's a learning period.There's an X amount of time that it takes to learn how to use the software, and in this case, also for the software to learn how to respond to you. The incredible thing about Dragon Premium 11.5 is that it has a very fast learning curve. I can say this unequivocally because I owned and used Dragon Naturally Speaking Home 11.5 edition. That edition is considerably slower in learning and I can only surmise that Nuance simply didn't put as much software information into Dragon Naturally Speaking Home edition as they did in the Premium edition.So when you get Dragon Premium out-of-the-box and you set up your first profile pay particular attention to something called "Words and Phrases" and instructions about "Vocabulary" options because these things are very important in how fast Dragon is going to learn your style of writing and speaking. Because it's all about time, (how much time you spend speaking into the microphone and allowing Dragon to listen & learn), when you get DNS Premium 11.5 going on your computer you actually can have it up to its 98% accuracy rate within three or four hours of dictation time!There are a number of things that you should know about Dragon's way of doing things and the manual isn't always the best way to go on some of these operations. I suggest very strongly that you pay a visit to "KnowBrainer.com" and read a few of the posts regarding merging other vocabulary and profile options of previous DNS programs. If you had a previous version of DNS on your computer it's not always best to carry the profile over and KnowBrainer.com is a true must in my opinion.The information that you can get is invaluable in forum of that website. As for DNS Premium 11.5, I strongly recommend this program to anyone who's looking for speech to text software but doesn't want to spend $500 or more on some of the higher-end offers out there. One more word of advice; I went through several headsets before I settled on one that works for me, (the one I got was Plantronics 995 USB wireless headset).I'm not saying that it doesn't have its faults, (it's pretty heavy, it encompasses the entire ear on both sides, and can get somewhat uncomfortable after a while), but what is important is that whatever headset you do get, make sure that you place your microphone near your nose or nostrils.The placement of the microphone near the nostrils is crucial because it permits your pronunciations to be less nasal like. Dragon instructs that you place the microphone 1 inch from your mouth, (the corner of your mouth), but I think that's just a generic placement and I found that to be not nearly as effective as placing it between my nose and my mouth closer to my nostrils.The headset/microphone that you choose will be very important and play a big part in the accuracy of your speech to text software. This is also true of digital recorders. I use the Sony ICD SX712 but there are better, if not more expensive, digital voice recorders out there. Recommendations that Nuance give for which digital recorders and headsets to use are not based on any real research at all. There is more info on that fact in 'Knowbrainer.com'.If you go to KnowBrainer.com you will find a far more accurate breakdown of the best headsets and digital voice recorders to use for DNS Premium as well as KnowBrainer software. I do give DNS Premium 11.5 all five stars and I also want to give a big thumbs up to their Customer Support Techs.Not everyone has had great results with them or the software but I think a lot has to do with the "little things" that I touched on and for which I believe they may have overlooked. That and the lack of patience will likely give you a bad experience. Oh and by the way, I did this entire review with DNS Premium 11.5. I used the digital recorder for most of it and the transcription had 4 errors. Two were definitely due to my poor annunciation, and the other two were capitalization errors. And I've only had Dragon Premium for about 2.5 weeks! Try it.