Migrate User or Start Anew when changing PC and OS?
Hi all,
I am a reasonably long time user of Dragon NaturallySpeaking (since version 7), for the last couple of years running it on a pretty good spec laptop. I have finally decided however to migrate to a standalone PC in the hopes that I will be able to deal with some of the issues I am facing with regard to system slowdowns. I do some quite intense multitasking (albeit only really with office applications, such as multiple instances of word, excel, Firefox, Outlook) as well as using Dragon as often as I can. Recently I have been driven almost to distraction by dragon's pausing - in some cases up to a minute as it thinks about things. In the same vein, it can take an age to bring up the corrections box and then operations within that are also very slow.
Anyway, enough with the waffling, the new PC should be much quicker generally (i7950, 6GB 1600 DDR3, Intel X25-M 80GB SSD) and running Vista 64 bit rather than my current Vista 32 bit.
My question is - should I should migrate my user profile over or start afresh? Obviously I'm going to have to do a fresh install with version DNS 10.1 for Vista 64-bit, microphone will stay the same (Plantronics CS55/Andrea USB) but I'm hoping that a decent soundcard in the system, rather than the generic little one in my laptop should make recognition better. Is there a general rule of thumb here?
Many thanks... Adrian
I'd save the old profile,
I'd save the old profile, but I think I'd start with a new user.
Just my 2¢ worth.
Skip
rdysan wrote: My question is
My question is - should I should migrate my user profile over or start afresh?
Adrian,
Depends on various factors, including:
- What version you're upgrading from
- How mature/customized your user files are
I upgraded my 32-bit user files without a hitch, although per another thread I believe I did have to manually move my old MyCmds.dat file. Skip is surely right though in suggesting that starting new user will insure fewer potential problems.
Its not an either/or decision. You can do both and stay with the one that works best for you.
Bruce
rdysan wrote: Recently I
Recently I have been driven almost to distraction by dragon's pausing - in some cases up to a minute as it thinks about things. In the same vein, it can take an age to bring up the corrections box and then operations within that are also very slow.
I think the idea that you should create a new user profile on the new machine may be beneficial. You can migrate all of your added words to the new user profile. Before doing so, I would get rid of any nonsense words that may have been inadvertently added. You do this by going to the Words menu on the Dragon Bar. Select View/Edit and drop down the list where it says Display. Select Custom words only. Go through the list and delete any of the words that do not belong. You can then export this list as a file. We just put them on our desktop. You can then import them into your new user profile. Also, if you have a Professional edition, you can move all of your custom commands/macros to the new user. Use Windows Explorer to find your user files. Find the file, "mycmds.dat" no quotes, and copy the over the one created in the new user. Do a short training and you should be very close to where you were and much faster.
microphone will stay the same (Plantronics CS55/Andrea USB) but I'm hoping that a decent soundcard in the system, rather than the generic little one in my laptop should make recognition better. Is there a general rule of thumb here?
The sound card in your current notebook should have had no affect on accuracy as it was being bypassed by the Andrea USB pod.
--
Martin Markoe, eMicrophones, Inc.
The best microphones for Speech Recognition
Read, "Key Steps to High Speech Recognition Accuracy"
Thanks
Thanks for your input everyone. Much appreciated.