On another note, I apologize for the lack of recent posts, as I have less time to contribute to the site and focus on other priorities.

Since this is a mainly empty post, I’d also like to ask readers for any feedback or requests. I’d appreciate any feedback in the comments section of this post below.

One of the features included with Windows Vista was speech recognition, a supposed feature that would revolutionize how we use computers:

We totally believe speech recognition will go mainstream somewhere over the next decade.

- Bill Gates, Sept. 2005 (view more quotes here)

This tutorial will show you how to install speech recognition for XP using the Microsoft Speech SDK. If you’ve got a copy of Office XP or 2003 handy, please follow this tutorial on Microsoft’s website.

For everyone else, please download the Microsoft Speech SDK here (see picture above for correct file).

Extracting the Speech SDK

The file you download is an executable zip file. Double click it, and tell it a path to extract to. We chose \My Documents\Downloads\speech.

Head into the folder you extracted the files to, and double click setup.exe.

Installation of the Speech SDK

It’s a pretty standard installation, but for your convenience we’ve put a picture tutorial below.

Click Next.

Accept the license agreement (unless you don’t), then click Next.

Optional. Just click Next if you’d like.

Keep the default, unless you dislike it. Click Next. The installation will start, and show you a finish screen when you’re done.

When it’s done, head to the Control Panel and double click on Speech. You’ll be greeted with the Speech Recognition dialog. Before you can start using Speech Recognition, click Train Profile.

Once you’re finished training your profile, head back to the Control Panel and double-click Regional and Language Options. Click the Language tab. Click Details. Verify that Speech Recognition is listed under English.

Click the Language Bar… under Preferences. Make sure the language bar is set to display on the desktop.

Click the Advanced tab, and make sure Extend support of advanced text services to all programs is checked. Click OK.

Once you’re done, a language bar should appear and you should be able to hit Speech to enable it. Unforutunately, speech recognition does not appear to be as full featured as within Vista. In a future post we’ll show you how to make the best of XP speech recognition.