Windows 7 - Speech recognition not working with non-microsoft programs

I'm starting to use Windows 7's speech recognition program which is proving to be much better than the alternatives, especially Dragon.

However, I can't get it to work with non-microsoft programs. It won't work with Adobe products (Photoshop, Illustrator, iDesign), Open Office, or the Chrome browser. It will work with Wordpad, Expression Web, Live Writer, etc.

Is there some setting I can change? Or is Speech Recognition a microsoft only tool?

I'm using the latest version of Windows 7 64 bit on an i5 Asus laptop.

Thanks for any help.
EdB

I have Dragon Naturally Speaking 11.5 and have been using Dragon off and on since 1999 it has improved since then.
I have tried Microsoft's Speech Recognition a few times and could not get some programs to work either. I just tried it again this morning after reading your post and I do not see anywhere where you can change any kind of settings, I did get it to open up Chrome, Open Office, and Photoshop but I could not get it to write anything or use any menu, all of the Microsoft products work just fine go figure.
Jerry

Thanks for the reply, Jerry. I do wonder if the Microsoft-only use for Speech Recognition is intentional; MSFT has always had a talent for shooting itself in the foot.

Re, Dragon: I have v10. Have you used it? Is it worth the upgrade to 11.5?

Thanks,
Ed

I have not tried 10 the last version I used before 11 was back on XP than about a year ago I bought 11 Home it's the cheapest one and it was on sale with a rebate and it ended up only cost to meet $26 US regularly it's $99 US. So I cannot say one way or the other if it's worth upgrading for you. Have you checked to see if there is an update available because mine started out as 11 and then updated itself to 11.5
Jerry

Thanks for the help Bongo. I'll think about getting the Dragon upgrade.

Naw is just most other applications have failed to utilize the accessibility APIs built into Windows which the speech recognition uses. Almost all of Microsoft's applications make heavy use of the accessibility APIs thus they mostly work with speech recognition.

Raymond Chen describes the problem here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/...16/702526.aspx