How to uninstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.1

I’ve been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for a number of years, and just last week got my hands on the latest incarnation, Version 11.

I decided to uninstall version 10.1 and start afresh, retraining the voice recognition learning engine to make allowance for a different headset and to take advantage of any new features.

But when I tried to uninstall version 1.1 it kept asking for an installation disk “1” that I knew didn’t exist anywhere on the planet, with the inevitable result:



Nothing that I tried, including a bit of fiddling with the Windows registry, enabled the product to be uninstalled.

So I did a little web searching, and on Nuance’s support site came across the answer, see How to completely uninstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10

Just in case that page disappears from the Nuance web site at some stage, I used the second method successfully, which is as follows:

Uninstall with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 "Remover Tool"
If uninstalling Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 from "Add or Remove Programs" and from the Product DVD fails, use the Remover Tool to completely uninstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10:
Note: Using the option below will not deactivate Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 or allow an additional installation to be activated.

1. Click Here to download the Remover Tool.
2. Save the "Dragon10.1Remover.exe" file to the Windows Desktop.
3. Back up any user profiles (if any exist).
4. Double click on the "Dragon10.1Remover.exe" file.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Notes:

• The user must be logged into the machine with administrator rights before running this utility.
• When selecting a different location to re-install Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 after using the Remover Tool to uninstall it, the installation path reverts to the location of the original installation. To uninstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 and re-install to another install path, we recommend using the uninstall feature in "Add or Remove Programs".

And that’s all there was to it, thank goodness! I subsequently was able to install NaturallySpeaking Version 11 without any further problems.

Technorati Tags: Dragon NaturallySpeaking,Nuance Communications Inc,Version 10,Version 11,Installation,Uninstallation,Problem

Bridge stolen? Writing blog posts the “live” way.

Just managed to upgrade to Windows Live Writer 2011 after many attempts over the last few months.

I kept getting an obscure error message, typical of what happens when the multi-component Windows Live gets itself into a mess. As with other such “black box” software packages, it was impossible to determine what was going wrong under the covers. I was at my wits’ end and couldn’t find a solution anywhere, but suddenly yesterday something changed (a Windows Update, or a new version of the installer, perhaps) and it “fixed itself” more or less.

Widows Live Writer (WLW) is an excellent free desktop tool for creating and maintaining blog posts, and these days I wouldn’t want to do it any other way. I use WLW for all my blogs, which are on Google’s Blogger.com (but WLW also acts as a front end to WordPress, TypePad and more).

This is just a fill-in blog post, giving me a chance to play with the enhancements in this version of Live Writer, such as the ribbon.

Blogging couldn’t be made easier! I’ll simply drag an image from the file system into the work area … then use the ribbon to right-adjust the image, and hey presto, there it is over to my right!

A quick speel chack (see bottom image) and I’m ready to click the Publish button.

By the way, the road sign is in Ireland, I think. Did somebody steal the bridge, or take it away for repainting, or what? I hope that they mandate life vests under  car seats over there!

I used the very handy Inpaint, a quite valuable and inexpensive graphics tool, to remove some extraneous objects from the image.

Here’s a snapshot of Windows Live Writer 2011 in action on this blog post:

My conclusion? The ribbon takes a bit of getting used to, but after that it’s  “no sweat” as we say here Down Under. Windows Live Writer 2011 is definitely nicer to use than the previous version (which itself was already far better that using the browser-based editor provided by Blogger.com). Thanks, Microsoft.

NotesTracker Guide Version 5.2 now available from Scribd

Read all about NotesTracker Version 5.2 in the guide now also available from social publishing and reading site Scribd.

Get the guide (a PDF document) from http://www.scribd.com/doc/38450330/NotesTracker-Version-5-2-Guide