*(There are improvements in Windows 7 not yet covered in this tutorial. This tutorial should work with both operating systems, though it may be organized differently.)

For those of you who have progressed to vista or Windows 7 there are some small benefits, especially for some impairments. Vista and Windows 7 have built in voice recognition and text to speech. Microsoft calls these products "Ease of Use". For some it's not so easy to use. Speech recognition needs to hear a lot of your voice to be able to "understand" you for one. So much has to be set up for your particular disability.

So let's start by going down to your start menu and typing in the search "ease of access", no quotes. This will show the Ease of Access Center, open it. You'll suddenly be overwhelmed with options. Assuming you're reading this article then the options for the blind may not apply to you, for those who are helping someone, you'll see the first Explore all settings is for the blind, this has the computer constantly reading the entire screen of text, not sure how helpful this really would be to a blind person. The options it gives you are for the auto narrator and the Audio Description. The Audio Descriptions seem like, once standardized would be the best because it would describe videos that are playing for you.

This next area helps a user who's visually impaired, but not blind, this has about the same options as the last area, but they added an option to make everything very large and with high contrast, this also has the magnifier which is added to the top of the page and is only useful when your mouse isn't moving. The last part is to make your mouse pointer and the like easier to see, remove animations and backgrounds.

The third, use the computer without a mouse and keyboard has two things, one is an on screen keyboard the other is a link to the voice recognition section. We'll get to that later.

Make the mouse easier to use gives contrast options and enlargement, below that is the option to use the keyboard in place of the mouse and last you can make the mouse "pull forward" or "bring to front" the window it's currently hovering over.

The keyboard section is like the last one, first at the top turns off the mouse and allows you to use the number pad to the right instead. Sticky keys doesn't seem useful, nor Toggle keys, Filter Keys on the other hand is useful if you have a hard time getting you hand off a key after typing, perhaps with MS or what not. I myself would rather set up voice recognition instead, had I that problem. At the end is an underline option to see shortcut keys.

One more before we get to the speech recognition, the alternative text and visual themes. This is the last two areas in the Ease of Access Center. The first one, this will visually replace sound with flashing bars or windows. The Second area, is called Make it easier to focus on tasks, this is kinds silly cause it's the same options the other areas already had.

Finally how to setup the speech recognition.
Alright back to Use the computer with a mouse and keyboard. After the on-screen keyboard click the highlighted "Use Speech Recognition" You can go straight to this by searching in the start menu for "Speech", no quotes. Once open you get yet another list of options, we're starting by clicking the first one called Start Speech Recognition. This pops up a window telling you what it is, click next. Here you choose what you use for audio input, a headset, desk microphone or other mics and built in mics. Choose what you're using and click next. This next window tells you how to use your mic, surprisingly many don't know how. The idea is to use the mic the same way, at all times to prevent feedback and keeping a constant level of volume. Basically keep the Mic the same distance away when you use it and no more than 2 feet away and keeping it away from the speakers. Click next, The next window auto calculates a volume level for you by you reading the quoted, bold text, click next. If it doesn't detect your voice make sure your mic isn't muted by right clicking the speaker symbol at the bottom right in the task tray and choosing Recording Devices, click your microphone and view its properties. The volume bars are in the levels tab at the top.

If all worked well after the last screen it should say your microphone is now set up, if so, click next. The next window is called Improve speech recognition accuracy, it gives the option to skip this, I wouldn't, in fact the more you read to your computer the more it recognizes your voice, so click enable document review this allows the system to read your emails and written documents to allow it to better understand your personal lingo, if you aren't the only computer user on that current account then do not enable this, it will confuse you for whom ever else uses the computer. After deciding, click next. The next window just wants you to view a reference card with all the common commands for using the microphone to control your system. I wouldn't look to long in it because you'll be doing a tutorial soon. Next window asks whether or not you want speech recognition to start at start-up. It all ends with a tutorial on how to command your system.

The Tutorial is fairly simple, read what it says and do so. I would go through this thoroughly, that way you can actually use it.

Now that you have a real understanding of how to use speech recognition, click the fourth option in the Speech Recognition Options, which you should now be able to see again. It's called Train your computer to better understand you. This is really important and should be done at least once. Without this step the system is more likely to misinterpret your words. What it wants you to do is evenly read the lines as you would normally use the speech system, remember to keep the same distances you did when you set up your mic. After reading a lot of single lines you'll be finished and should be able to completely use your microphone for everything.

I hope this is useful, this is the first tutorial like this that I've ever made. I hope some of you are able to use this walkthrough.