The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition

Ever get the desire to control your computer, Star Trek-style? With Windows 7’s Speech Recognition, it’s easier than you might think.

Microsoft has been working on its voice command steadily over the years. XP introduced it, Vista smoothed it, and 7 has it polished. It’s strangely not advertised as a feature, even though other voice command and speech recognition programs are hundreds of dollars. It may not be as perfect as some of them, but there’s definitely something amazing about vocally telling your computer to do things and it actually working.


It’s simple to enable, easy to configure and use, and just plain fun. Watch our video below to see how to enable it and to see a demo of what it can do.

And of course, you can call up the cheat sheet found in the Help file at any time by asking “What can I say?”