This is partly related to my recent post about the Andrea WNC-2500, but really just indirectly. Work authorizations expired the ending the

DICTATION SOURCES.
I have 6 dictation sources in "Manage Dictation Sources".  One is the built-in laptop microphone that I use occasionally, another is the headset I'm using.  Both of these can be enabled.  The others are from previous experiments adnd temporary workarounds. Some of them are for headsets that no longer work.

I can't find a way to remove the unused sources.  The topic came up in at least one thread on the forum, but the question about removing sources was not answered.  The implication was that removing wasn't necessary.  However, the unused/unavailable sources are confusing - especially with names that are similar to sources that are used or available.

Is there a way to actually REMOVE sources?

TRAINING
I'm not sure if I've just missed some changes in Dragon, or at least not fully absorbed them. I want to train Dragon again.  Perhaps I'm on the wrong track of thinking that a new source needs retraining, but that appears to be the problem.

1) Is it possible to retrain with an existing profile, using one of the available sources?

2) If retraining isn't possible, is the correct way to create a new profile?  And if that's the case, I'm guessing that saving an existing profile as a new one (export, create new, import), will not be helpful because existing training issues will be perpetuated.  So, a completely new profile?

Thanks

Mike

-------------------------

Dragon Professional Individual 15, Windows 10 Home 64 bit, Office 2016 32 mbit

 

 

 

Unused dictation sources are not just potentially confusing, they also take up disk space unnecessarily. Each dictation source has its own set of acoustic data which can be more or less depending on how much you have used the source, but will linger on even past not using the dictation source any longer. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to remove them.

To handle all this, I have created a little utility called DragonSources.

You can trial it at no charge for 30 days.

-------------------------

The New Game in Town: DragonConnect

I haven't been able to get back to this for a few days.

Rüdiger, your DragonSources utility seems like a useful too. Unfortunately, I can't get it to run. I did get the initial screen to show once (after restart) with a warning that Dragon wasn't loaded. But DragonSources doesn't show the initial screen again, whether DNS is running or not.

I wonder if there is something wrong with the basic DNS 15 Professional installation.

C:\ProgramData\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking15\ is using 7G - with 2.7G in the DataPack folder (6 flavors of English).
There is 2.3G in Users\mikep with folder current taking up 868M (dated today), folder backup 866M dated yesterday. Also dated yesterday is folder backup2 (25M) and chkpt (603M).
And also Users\BadUsers\mikep 1.6G, dated Jun 14. I have no idea why that's there, or the date.

It feels like it might be best to uninstall DNS and reinstall.

Comments?
Thanks
Mike

-------------------------

Dragon Professional Individual 15, Windows 10 Home 64 bit, Office 2016 32 mbit

 

 

 

Mike, you installed and successfully created a trial license for DragonSources, according to the license server, which means that it ran successfully at least once.

DragonSources needs to be started via the icon which is placed on the Desktop by the installer. However, it won't start unless Dragon is running, as it wouldn't make sense otherwise. It is meant to list the dictation sources which are associated to the user profile which is currently loaded, and give you the option to remove any additional sources which are currently not in use.

If the above doesn't work as described, please report back and give me more details please.

Don't worry about the folder structure you are mentioning, and better leave it to Dragon to manage it. If you have any additional profiles which are no longer needed, remove them via the Dragon menu "Manage user profiles", but keep in mind that you can only remove user profiles which are currently no in use.

Also keep in mind that you can only load a user profile if it isn't currently selected in Windows File Explorer. To that end, just leave them alone unless you know exactly what you are doing. Far too often, bad advice is given resulting in messing with it. For that matter, leave it to Dragon. The developers aren't that thick.



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The New Game in Town: DragonConnect

It sounds to me like the easiest way is to use Rudiger's utility program for removing unused profiles, or use the procedure Lunis identified in his Quick Tips PDF from Certified Sources. That procedure is posted further down in this thread.  It's messy to remove dictation sources manually.

 

Nonetheless, long ago, I was able to clean up my installation by following this procedure from a Nuance Tech Guy.


1. Close Dragon
2. Press Windows key + E
3. Go to This Pc
4. Go to C:\Program Data\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking15\Users\< Profile name >
5. Delete any folder that beings with tb. The following folders need to be retained:
 
              Backup - (may not exist)
              Backup2 - (may not exist)
        Current
        dataarchive

6. Navigate into the "current" folder.
7. Delete any folder that beings with "t".

(kkkwj: On my system, there were 3 or 4 to delete - ta, ts, tt, ttm)

The following folders must be retained:
          General_
          General__container
          voice (these will be labeled 0_1, 2_1, 3_1, etc.)
          voice_container (these will be labeled 0_1_Container, 0_2_Container, etc.)
 
Try launching Dragon again.
Regards,
Kevin
Nuance Technical Support

You can figure out which 0_1, 2_1 label belongs to which mic by looking in the audio.ini file. I deleted the folders that belonged to the sources I wanted to remove. Here is an example:

 

[UAP|2 2]

...

DictationSource=USB Microphone

DeviceName=Microphone (2- Samson Meteor Mic)

DeviceType=Microphone (USB)

JackInformation=

 

So for this one, I would remove the 2_2 and 2_2_Container folders, and the entries in the audio.ini file. The acoustic.ini file also contains some references that could be removed.

 

But if you can, use the Certified procedure posted further down. It is MUCH easier.

-------------------------

Win10/11/x64, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X/3950X, 64/128GB RAM, Dragon 15.3, SP 7 Standard, SpeechStart, Office 365, KB 2017, Dragon Capture, Samson Meteor USB Desk Mic, Amazon YUWAKAYI headset, Klim and JUKSTG earbuds with microphones, excellent Sareville Wireless Mono Headset, 3 BenQ 2560x1440 monitors, Microsoft Sculpt Keyboard and Logitech G502 awesome gaming mouse.

Not at all! It is about removing dictation sources from a user profile which have been added to it but are no longer used. The Dragon menus don't provide the means to do this.



That particular advice is only relevant if you get the error message along the lines of "...file xyz couldn't be renamed to xyz" during closing down the profile. Other than that, just leave them alone, unless you know exactly what you are doing.



-------------------------

The New Game in Town: DragonConnect

Good advice, for most things in Dragon and Politics: "just leave them alone, unless you know exactly what you are doing."

Dictation sources in profiles add up (ever see multiples of the same source because you used a different USB port once?) and once added, don't go away. Rüdiger's utility makes it easy to prune the bloat by investigating the names and file structure of those sources using appropriate calls to Dragon internal info (all kept in text files, too, if you look for it). So you don't have to be the one who knows exactly.

 

Or just start a new profile . . .

-------------------------

PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

I'm glad to see that other people are succeeding with Rüdiger's utility. I did uninstall and reinstall, with the service pack as well. I'm disappointed, but not surprised now that I remember how things changed a while back, that there is no longer the ability to train a profile. I expect that Dragon thinks that's simpler for people, which is fine until you find yourself retraining on too many individual words and phrases (including teaching Dragon to allow me to swear). Never mind, I still have the exported profile if I get too frustrated.

Back to DragonSources, and answering Rüdiger's questions.

I am able to start DragonSources from the desktop, and see the prompt for the trial. But nothing (visible) happens after I say 'Yes" to continuing the trial. There are two sources now visible within the Dragon bar. So that's at least one plus from reinstalling - the unused sources that I had previously have disappeared. But I would still like to be out to see DragonSources run. The Windows 10 compatibility troubleshooter shows that it set up to be Windows 8 compatible. I didn't see the trial screen after the first try, and Dragon was no longer working until I chose a new dictation source.

Thanks
Mike


-------------------------

Dragon Professional Individual 15, Windows 10 Home 64 bit, Office 2016 32 mbit

 

 

 

Mike you may want to explain which ver of Dragon you use. There is no DNS 15, and the Dragon ver 15 doesn't have a "premium" flavor . . .

Before Rüdiger's program (and back when profiles were more precious and had to be carefully maintained), I used to just wholesale delete all mic sources and start with whatever current one I needed at the time, also running the Check Mic routine often (back in the early days, almost daily) to set the volume (now almost never necessary with AGC) - and I routinely use at least three or four mic sources (a USB desktop mic, on-board laptop mic, remote desktop mic with RDP, WO Mic from my phone, and Teradici remote mic in AWS)! It takes very little time to add new mic sources and the individual mic settings have little to do with the profile accuracy.

-------------------------

PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

Sorry for the confusion. I am so used to calling it DNS. I thought it was time to update my profile, and made a mistake. I have Dragon Professional Individual version 15.30.
Mike

-------------------------

Dragon Professional Individual 15, Windows 10 Home 64 bit, Office 2016 32 mbit

 

 

 

Mike, for good measure, I just installed the currently published version of DragonSources again, as I hadn't used it in a while, started it with Dragon not running, created a trial license, which took me to the DragonSources screen telling me that it won't run if Dragon isn't running, and thus terminated *cleanly* (no killing in the task manager involved), started Dragon and loaded a user profile, started DragonSources, and this is what I have got:

 

 

As you can see, it runs and displays the currently loaded profile along with some currently used settings (options), which are not really essential to it, but rather a bonus (and probably a pain in the neck to some around, think of sandtraps).

 

Also, and more importantly, it displays the currently used source (dictation source), which is the SpeechMike III. Now, since this is the only source currently used in the profile, there are no additional sources around and listed in the box below labelled "Additional Sources", but if there were any, they would be listed in that box, along with the disk space they take up, and you could select them in the box and press the "Delete" button to remove them.

 

Basically, that's all there is to it, and I get it to run, so I am wondering what's not working on your end.

 

Easy as cake, if you ask me.

 

 

 

-------------------------

The New Game in Town: DragonConnect

Easy for you to write!  Perhaps I shouldn't even be trying to reply - I can't get the screen shot of the latest error to upload, so I'll have to type it in.

I have never seen a screen like the one you showed.  I saw the trial screen, and once a warning about not having started Dragon.  I just tried temporarily installing Dragon on a different machine, and then DragonSources.

I saw the Trial message. Then an Error window:

IDgnEngine::get_Speaker failed (HRESULT 0x800706C6) *COM returned an unexpected error code: Details are The array bounds are invalid.

(RPC_S_INVALID_BOUND, 1734)

The same thing happened every time I try to start DragonSources on the temporary machine.

Wow - low and behold - the first machine is now showing the screen you showed.

Mike

 

-------------------------

Dragon Professional Individual 15, Windows 10 Home 64 bit, Office 2016 32 mbit

 

 

 

You can take a picture by clicking into the Window and pressing {Alt+Prtsc}. Please do not just press {Prtsc} and attach or post your picture here because it will be humongous and possibly too small to view the error.

See How to Attach Pictures for pictorial step-by-step on attaching or inserting pictures within your post.

-------------------------

Change "No" to "Know" w/KnowBrainer 2022
Trial Downloads
Dragon/Sales@KnowBrainer.com 
(615) 884-4558 ex 1

Thanks Lunis. I'd already captured the picture and saved at a decent size. I'm used to doing that. It was the upload that eluded me. Perhaps Rüdiger can make sense of what I typed in.

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Dragon Professional Individual 15, Windows 10 Home 64 bit, Office 2016 32 mbit

 

 

 

I had the need to delete some unwanted profiles, and thought I would post this here after searching for this thread to figure out how I did it last time (posted above).

 

Here is the easiest way to delete unwanted sources if you still have the unwanted mic.

I found this in the Quick Tips by Lunis.

 

https://certifiedesupport.com/knowledgebase/dragon-naturallyspeaking-support/remove-microphone-dragon-professional-individual-v15/

1. plug in the unwanted mic

2. Profile, manage dictation sources

3. Select the guy you want to kill

4. Audio, Reset Audio Calibration

5. Say Yes, you want to recalibrate

6. On the next dialog, click cancel - Dragon will delete the mic source

7. Go back to Profile, manage sources - the source will be gone

8. Repeat to delete all the unused ones

9. Finish by choosing the one you want to use.

-------------------------

Win10/11/x64, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X/3950X, 64/128GB RAM, Dragon 15.3, SP 7 Standard, SpeechStart, Office 365, KB 2017, Dragon Capture, Samson Meteor USB Desk Mic, Amazon YUWAKAYI headset, Klim and JUKSTG earbuds with microphones, excellent Sareville Wireless Mono Headset, 3 BenQ 2560x1440 monitors, Microsoft Sculpt Keyboard and Logitech G502 awesome gaming mouse.