Voice Recognition issues

[chasfm11]

We've been using the same HP Pavillion dv4000 (1.7mz processor, 2G Ram, running XP Home, all current fixes) for several years to run Street Atlas while we travel in our RV. In the past number of months, the ability of Street Atlas to recognize voice commands has grown markedly worse. In an effort to correct the problem, I
1. Uninstalled all versions. 2006 and 2008 were removed successfully through the Windows Control Panel. Remove on 2007 failed. I manually deleted the files on the hard drive and labored through the Window's Registry to remove all references to Delorme or Street Atlas. There were over 300.
2. reinstalled only 2008 after rebooting the machine to allow Windows to verify the Registry.
3. Connected the noise canceling boom mic from the desk top computer that I use for my Spanish Lessons. The microphone seems to do well with the recognition portions of the Spanish course so I reasoned that it should be OK for the laptop. I used the Windows utility then the Street Atlas utility to set the microphone volume on the HP after plugging in the mic.

With no other programs running, I went to Voice in the options menu and started the Delorme training. Here is what I found:
1. On every new page, the microphone checkbox unchecked itself. When I rechecked it, the training would proceed. As the exercise neared completion, recognition was improving but the microphone was still unchecking.
2. I tried the Fall of the House of Usher voice recognition training. Initially, page changes also caused the microphone checkbox to uncheck. As the lesson progressed, that stopped. The recognition was terrible, however. I would describe the computer response as "halting". I was read multiple words at a fairly moderate pace and the highlighting would initially cover those words. Then a pause of up to 2 seconds occurred before all most of the highlighting was reset. On page changes, often the first 2-3 words on the next page were highlighted by the program before I made any sound (in a totally quiet room, late at night). The recognition program would make those first couple of words solidly highlighted, allowing me to move one but without my having attempted to say any of them. On the longer phrases, the rejections after the initial recognition of up to 4-8 words often reset back to recognition of a single word. I found that if I only attempted 4 words, the recognition rate improved somewhat.

While doing this was occurring, I examined the Systray and used the icons there to halt the AVG anti-virus, the Zone Alarm firewall and almost all other processes running. None of these actions made any difference. At the conclusion of the "Usher" training, I attempted to manipulate the Street Atlas views (since I was limited to those commands because on GPS was running at the time). Only the "pan" commands recognized with any certainty. I do use "computer" to initiate all commands to avoid problems. Dropping that made no difference.

My conclusion is that something in Windows has been corrupted or changed by Windows fixes. I've run Zone Alarm's scans, AVG's scans and Spybot Search and Destroy and there is no evidence of viruses or trojans on the machine. The halting response while doing the recognition training, however, suggests that some other process is taking processing time away. I cannot imagine how a Windows corruption would do that.

Since I could find noone else reporting similar problems, I can only assume that the corruption is unique to my system. I have two licenses for Street Atlas, the 2nd running on and IBM Thinkpad T60 with XP Professional. I tried the same recognition training exercises on it with the same microphone and the response was virtually flawless. It recognizes every command quickly.

Any thoughts and ideas are appreciated.

Charlie

P.S. Sorry for the long post

[chasfm11]

Update: I've searched the Microsoft Knowledge base for some additional ideas. One was to fragment the hard drive. While the MS utility said it wasn't necessary, I overrode that advice and completed the defragment.

I'm focusing now on the "recovery" time. In the speech recognition training, the speed at which the software initially recognizes the words has improved with training. This is the part the produces the first level of highlighting. Where I believe that the problem lies is in the activity and time afterwards before the heavy highlighting is added and the application is ready to recognize more words. Right now, there can be several to many seconds of delay between those two steps. By contrast, the IBM Thinkpad executes the second highlight in less than one second. Those delays in the training seem to mirror the delayed recognition in normal use, where I might have to repeat the same command many times. The most interesting observation so far is that the delay is not consistent. Sometimes, words in the training are recognized and the 2nd highlight is applied on the HP as quickly as on the Thinkpad. At other times, the delay between steps is significant. To me, it still points to the computer's processor being busy with other tasks but the Windows task manager usage percentages give no clues about what those might be.

[John Moran_2]

Maybe you need to find the Delorme word list on the HP computer and defrag it. Is it possible that words that start with the first part of the alphabet work better?
JM_2

[phranc]

Since you said this computer is dedicated for RV use, you should probably uninstall everything that isn't essential to it's use in the RV. Plus you should run msconfig, (Start>Run>masconfig) and uncheck any extraneous start up programs there.

You can find an excellent article in the Delorme Knowledge Base under installation problems on how to get a vanilla reboot. This will eliminate other programs interfering.

[west3man]

My thinking is somewhat similar to phranc's except I'd completely reinstall Windows and Street Atlas. Can't blame you for trying everything else under the sun, first.

Good luck.

[chasfm11]

Thanks for the replies.

1. I notice no difference in the words that the speech recognition hesitates to recognize. I'm not sure where to even look for the Delorme word list but will see what I can find.

2. We do use the computer for the RV but it is also of some value at home. I assumed that by shutting down all other running processes (except the essential ones), I was limiting the potential interference. I do recognize that I may not have accomplished that.

3. The HP came pre-loaded with Windows. I may be able to use the HP recovery disks that came with it but suspect that a complete reload of Windows, short of going out and buying another XP license is not an option. I'm not sure that I could even buy an XP license anymore. To that point, I'm wondering if the problem isn't somehow tied to Windows XP Home. The Thinkpad runs XP Professional as does my desktop.

To be honest, I've seriously toyed with simply replacing the HP computer. I just don't want Vista as another complication in my life and it appears that there are no new laptops with XP as an option. While I understand that most people don't have problems with Vista, it will be just my luck that some of the applications that I'm running on the HP will be obsoleted by Vista or that I will be the "lucky" one to find Vista's problems.

[John Moran_2]

Don't change to Vista if you use the Voice feature, particularly on two different computers on XP. Whole different ball of wax with limited Vista voice options.
JM_2

[west3man]

[...]
3. The HP came pre-loaded with Windows. I may be able to use the HP recovery disks that came with it but suspect that a complete reload of Windows, short of going out and buying another XP license is not an option. I'm not sure that I could even buy an XP license anymore. To that point, I'm wondering if the problem isn't somehow tied to Windows XP Home. The Thinkpad runs XP Professional as does my desktop.

I just meant that it might be a good idea to start from factory settings. Recovery discs should be fine for that purpose.

To be honest, I've seriously toyed with simply replacing the HP computer. I just don't want Vista as another complication in my life and it appears that there are no new laptops with XP as an option. While I understand that most people don't have problems with Vista, it will be just my luck that some of the applications that I'm running on the HP will be obsoleted by Vista or that I will be the "lucky" one to find Vista's problems.

I can't say I blame you, but unless some hardware's failing (in which case you'd have to take more drastic measure, anyway) when all else fails, returning to factory settings should work - or as well as SA ever worked on that particular unit.

I'd try a that route before chucking the system.