Where did the Windows speech training applet go?

[Gary]

Windows 11 24H2 brought us a lot of improvements.  One of those improvements was the addition of the Voice Access application, which replaces the old Speech Recognition app that we've come to love (or hate - probably hate).  Upon replacing the Speech Recognition app, Microsoft also removed the Speech Recognition control panel applet which was one of the places where you could launch the Speech Recognition app.  Unfortunately, this same control panel applet also contained the launchers for other essential speech recognition configuration applets- most notably the speech training applet.

Many applications that depend on Windows' speech recognition still exist and still work great on Windows 11; thus (and thankfully), Microsoft did not remove the underlying speech recognition components.  However, like the baby with the proverbial bath water, the various avenues to easily configure your speech experience within Windows were also ejected with the control panel applet.  The good news is that your old buddy VoiceAttack has you covered.  There are a couple of ways to access the speech training app (and the accompanying microphone setup app) within Windows via VoiceAttack's interface.

The first way is through the Options screen.  Simply go to Options (the little wrench at the bottom of the main screen), then over to the Recognition tab.  On that tab, you'll see a button labeled, 'Utilities'.  Click that button and you will see options to launch the microphone setup app (which you should probably do first, before training your speech engine) and the speech training app.  On a side note (and for future reference), this list also contains links to launch other great utilities such as the Add/Remove Dictionary Words app, the Sound Settings app as well as the Advanced Speech Setup app (which is mentioned below).

The second way to get to the Speech Recognition Voice Training app (and microphone setup app) is by right-clicking on the VoiceAttack icon that appears in your desktop task bar when VoiceAttack is running.  The item you are looking for is labeled, 'Advanced Speech Options'.  Clicking this will bring up the Advanced Speech Options app.  Within this app, you can launch the speech training app (labeled, 'Train Profile...'), and configure your microphone.

Note that what is indicated above is labeled as it is found in the latest version of VoiceAttack (earlier versions may vary).


Hoping some of this will be helpful as we all get our 24H2 (and beyond) Windows updates!