DNS cannot find sound system--completely inoperable

[Benjamin]

I've been using Dragon Naturally Speaking for over a year on my
computer,
and now it has become inoperable. I keep getting the message

"Check Microphone cannot find the sound system. Make sure your
microphone is plugged in."

I'm running Windows 7 home premium, Japanese version. I'd already
changed the
region to the US to get correction to work in DNS, but based on the
following, I
also tried changing the system locale to English:

http://www.knowbrainer.com/forums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=4&threadid=12800

This allowed DNS to find the microphone again and allowed me to
dictate,
so indeed, the problem seems to be that DNS can't recognize the
Unicode
name of the sound card. Unfortunately, changing the system locale made
Wordfast classic unable to find the TMs and glossaries, rendering it
useless.
Switching the locale back to Japanese made Wordfast happy but caused
DNS to once again be inoperable.

I tried uninstalling and then re-installing DNS, to no avail. In light
of the following
archive post, I now have reason to doubt that DNS will ever work again
on my
system:

http://honyaku-archive.org/posts/254530/?q=dragon%20naturally%20speaking

I'm writing with the hope that someone has had this problem and has
figured out a work-around that doesn't involve changing the system
locale.

In the worst case, if I have to give up on using DNS on this system,
other
(expensive) options that occur to me are:

1. Buy a second widows computer with an entirely English OS (not just
an English
language pack) and use DNS in combination with Wordfast, as other
translators seem to do without trouble
2. Buy a Mac and use MacDictate (and hope that Wordfast works?)
3. Find other dictation software that will run on a Japanese version
of Windows

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Benjamin Willey

[Jens Wilkinson]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Benjamin <fukuino...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been using Dragon Naturally Speaking for over a year on my
> computer,
> and now it has become inoperable. I keep getting the message
>

What about trying it with a USB microphone. I really don't understand
what's happening, but you said it worked for a year, so there must be
something that changed recently that messed it up.

--
Jens Wilkinson
Neo Patwa (patwa.pbwiki.com)

[Jacob Dunlap]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Jens Wilkinson <jenswi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What about trying it with a USB microphone.

I had problems with the soundcard in my system as well, so I picked up
one of these (I think it was a Sennheiser headset, but any USB
noise-canceling headset will do). I also tried picking up a USB
soundcard kind of like this one:

http://us.store.creative.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-XFi-Go-Pro/M/B0044DEDC0.htm

but I had better results with a headset that came with its own
dedicated USB stick. I don't think you're going to have to replace
your entire computer, though.

Good luck!

Jacob Dunlap

[Benjamin]

Thank you both for your responses. I'm actually dictating this e-mail, thanks to the USB microphone that I just went out and bought. When I first created a new profile, Dragon still said it couldn't find the USB microphone (now telling me instead to make sure that the microphone was plugged in, instead of telling me to make sure I had a sound system), but then I was able to select training from the menu to complete the profile, and now it seems to have no problems. Again, thank you both!