Monday, March 24, 2008

Getting Speech Recognition Back into MS Office 2007 on Windows XP

We have been conducting fresh installations of Office 2007 on Windows XP systems. As I went to test things to make sure everything was OK, I noticed (despite the many layout changes in Office 2007) that the 'Speech' option (formerly located on MS Word 2003 under Tools) was no where to be found. I went through many different blogs and tech forums to conclude that Office 2007 does not have speech recognition. I believe the intent is to allow Office 2007 to rely on the speech recognition features that are built into Windows Vista. However, this does not help those of us who are running Office 2007 on Windows XP. So, I began tinkering...

I discovered that, after one installs Office 2007, one can add components that were found in Office 2003, which includes the speech recognition components. Simply after installing Office 2007, put the Office 2003 CD into the drive and start the installation procedure. Choose to do a custom install and then disable the installation of everything except the Office Components (which should run all from disk). Then complete the installation. Voila...speech recognition is back.

Hope this helps!

7 comments:

Dragon Woya said...

Cool man... I had tried it. Thank U very much

Bauder said...

I also was having the same problem... thanks for the solution!!!!!

J Robinson said...

Yes! Thant's what I was looking for. Thanks!

Master Sanket D said...

I had tried this but after installation of components where do I found the option of voice recognition in office 2007...

Anonymous said...

Hi Brian,

What if one doesnt have 2003 anymore, is it still sourceable on the internet?

I got a deal with buying the laptop with MS Office 2007 part of the package...

Help!

Anonymous said...

Dear Brian,

Your solution didn't work. :( Can some regedit bring the Speech Recognition back?

Anna Schafer said...

Over the years the way technology has improved, can be easily seen from the fact that, human voice can now control various gadgets all around them. speech recognition program