When you try to run a Microsoft speech-based application in Windows Vista, the application may not work. Additionally, you may receive an error message that resembles one of the following error messages.
Error message 1
An error occurred when creating or initializing the recognition context, so speech recognition will not work.
Error message 2
This voice cannot be played. Please try selecting another voice or selecting a different audio output device
This issue may occur when the application uses Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) 5.1 speech recognition (SR) engines or when the application uses the SAPI 5.1 Test to Speech (TTS) engines.

Note: This issue does not occur on a Windows XP-based computer.

There are plenty of clips showing Vista’s speech recognition feature failing, and one of the most popular is “MSFT Financial Analyst Meeting 2006: Steve Ballmer”. It appears that most of the clips from this event were edited prior to distribution and while they include the speech recognition acting crazy, they don’t include what happened right after that, which showed it working perfectly. Here’s a clip that shows both the bad and the good.

After all the unsuccessful speech recognition videos, here is one that is supposedly successful. I say supposedly because the audio is a little hard to understand, and the screen is a little hard to see.

Speech recognition seems to get a lot more attention than it deserves. It’s still far from perfect, or even from useful, so most mentions of it are to poke fun. Here is a link taking it seriously. Keep reading →

A rare video of Vista’s Speech Recognition working the way it is supposed to.

An amateur video of someone trying to use Vista’s Speech Recognition to navigate in Firefox and IE.

An amateur video of a user trying to use Vista’s speech recognition to create a Perl script.

A news report about a Microsoft Windows Vita Speech Recognition demo that didn’t go quite the way they would have wanted.

When you play an audio file in Windows Vista, voice commands may be unintentionally issued to Windows Speech Recognition. This problem may also occur if an audio file is played when you visit a Web site.

You cannot use Speech Recognition in Windows Vista to select commands on floating toolbars in Microsoft Office. However, you can select commands on docked toolbars in Office.