Assigning a name to a keystroke

[Ed Marquette]

Friends:

With Microsoft's Voice Access, there is a universal (works anywhere in Windows) hotkey, Alt + shift + B, that turns the microphone on and off. Please, I know there are other ways to do the same thing. In Narrator, one hears "Microphone On" or "Microphone Off." I think I can get NVDA to say a word or phrase at a keystroke (though I have never done this), but I do not know how to have NVDA check to see if the microphone is on or off and then report the correct status—as the "on" is changed to "off" and vice versa. 

To do this, I'm thinking I have to write an addon for NVDA—way above my pay grade (I'm a lawyer, not a programmer). Or, perhaps I might try my hand at AutoHotKey (something I'm actively trying to learn).

Any suggestions?

[joseph....@gmail.com]

Hi,

NVDA will announce microphone status from anywhere when you press Alt+Shift+B while using Voice Access… but if NVDA is installed (won’t work for portable versions).

Answer provided by the very person who programmed that into NVDA.

Cheers,

Joseph

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[Ed Marquette]

Joseph:

Good to know that it is supposed to work in NVDA. Now, I just have to figure out why it doesn’t work on my Lenovo ThinkPad yoga.

Does it matter whether NVDA starts first?

I ask only because Gemini strongly suggested that the screen reader be running prior to starting voice access.

That seemed a little goofy.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 17, 2026, at 12:04 PM, joseph....@gmail.com wrote:



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[joseph....@gmail.com]

Hi,

Screen reader first or Voice Access first: it doesn’t matter.

In order to announce notifications from Voice Access (powered by UIA notification event, by the way), NVDA must be installed to obtain higher app privileges. Portable copy does not have enough privileges to announce Voice Access notifications, let alone access Voice Access interface.

Also, I wonder this is something new with NVDA 2026.1 and later as notifications might work better on 64-bit NVDA releases. To test that, install NVDA 2026.1 beta 11 and ee if that makes a difference.

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