Microsoft will end support for Windows speech recognition in the upcoming Windows 11. With speech recognition, you can teach the operating system to understand your voice and open apps or dictate commands, but it's time to say goodbye to this legacy feature.
Microsoft believes that Windows 11’s new voice access feature, which supports multiple languages and is powered by artificial intelligence, is the future trend.
With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft has added many new features to the operating system - a new Start menu, widgets, a redesigned File Explorer, and more. While many of the new features are welcome, users are also notified about feature deprecations. "Windows Speech Recognition" is the latest feature to be deprecated.
This news comes directly from Microsoft's deprecated features list. Notably, WordPad and Cortana are two of the most prominent features. Other features that are disappearing include Mail and Calendar, the Tips app, and the Step Recorder.
Windows speech recognition introduced in Windows Vista is an important feature built into the operating system. It allows users to interact with Windows using voice commands. It is also an important tool for users with accessibility issues.
Launch the Set Up Speech Recognition Wizard and press the Windows+Ctrl+S keys on your keyboard at the same time to set up this feature. Users should enable the microphone via Settings->Time & Language->Microphone and click Start.
In Windows 11, you can launch it by searching for "voice access" from the search bar or Settings. According to Microsoft, this feature will be replaced by voice access.
After turning on the voice access switch, if the language pack is not installed, you need to download the language pack. Voice access is only available in English in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.
Speech Access supports most of the features currently in development in Windows Speech Recognition. Future Windows updates will add more supported regions.
Microsoft mentioned that the speech recognition feature will be discontinued starting in December 2023 and will no longer receive updates. While the speech recognition feature is still there, we wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft removes the feature entirely in a future Windows update. If you use this feature, we recommend switching to voice access. It's worth noting that voice access only works on Windows 11, 22H2 or later.