Last week I upgraded to Microsoft Office Home and Student (possibly not a good idea, but it's been paid for). This week I tried to use my Dragon 13 Premium, but it just won't load.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled Dragon. I've now rebooted and and tried to open it three times, but it always just hangs. Once I left it pretending to launch overnight... still there in the morning.

What else should I be doing?

Must I buy Dragon 15--and if I do, will it (probably) open?

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1. Try uninstalling Premium 13 as you did before but this time you may wish to preserve 1 of your 5 activations, which will otherwise be sacrificed in step #3

2. Step #3 will destroy your user profile so if you wish to save it, move ~ C:\ProgramData\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking15\Users\(your username) folder to the desktop

3. Run DragonRemover to remove every trace of Dragon from your computer; even the System Registry. Think of this as a complete uninstall (on steroids)

4. Reinstall Premium 13

5. Move your user profile back to the original address, cross your fingers and launch Premium 13

A few things to keep in mind:

• Ver. 13 isn't fully Windows 10 compatible 

• Even DPI 15.3 isn't fully Office 365 (2009) compatible but Ver. 13 is nowhere near compatible

• Dragon Premium is a discontinued consumer version of Dragon so you're not only missing out on the advantages of Professional, you are 2 versions out of date; something to consider 

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Thank you very much for your quick and helpful response. I'll give this a try just as soon as some other responsibiities are out of the way. Very grateful!

I did the uninstall, deep cleaning, reinstall, and rebooted. Dragon 13 still won't work.

How likely is Dragon 15 to function in Windows 10? 

Even Ver. 13 is mostly Windows 10 compliant. Ver. 14 is fully Windows 10 compliant and of course DPI 15.3 is fully compliant because if it wasn't, Nuance would be out of business

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Thanks!

OK. I've installed Dragon Home 15 from a disk. Took quite a while to figure out where to find the icon, but I finally got it up.

The Dragon icon has been hanging on my screen for 20 minutes now. It's doing exactly what Dragon 13 did. 

This is a brand-new download. I'd entirely uninstalled and deep uninstalled Dragon 13.

Could someone tell me what the heck is going on, and how I can start using Dragon? (I tried calling Nuance customer support, but they're closed for the COVID-19 season).

Many thanks

You will note that in our previous answers, we NEVER recommended the Home Edition (Dragon appetizer) because it's a stripped-down version of Dragon Premium which is a stripped-down version of DPI 15.3. Premium was discontinued to eliminate the confusion of not having enough of the Professional features. You have basically took one step forward and 2 steps back. You not only can't create commands, you can't even edit or add words to your personal vocabulary, like you could in Premium 13 or even apples free Siri utility; Yikes! This is unacceptable under any circumstances but it doesn't stop there. The Home Edition doesn't include an upgrade option so you have to keep paying full price for each new release while you can upgrade to the next release of DPI (Dragon Professional Individual) by paying an upgrade price for as little as $99. In a few years you will are paid more for the Home Edition and lacking those critical features. Please forgive our previous rant but we are rather angry at Nuance charging for software that should have been released as freeware. NEVER purchase Dragon from Nuance because there is literally no support. A professional licensed/certified reseller would have told you to forget the Home Edition and added an additional layer of real support. 

Nuance doesn't give out installation instructions because they apparently figure that installation instructions are unnecessary but our KnowBrainer Dragon Installation/Training Guide, which is complementary to our Dragon customers details the process. It also details the 3 dozen sandtraps and our customers receive a complimentary 30 day remote service backed by a customer satisfaction guarantee. Nuance outsources their support to a polite support team in India who has never used Dragon and rarely comes up with a helpful solution because all they do is read from the Nuance Knowledgebase which you now have a link to. You are now a Nuance qualified support source.

If you're going to keep the Home Edition, you might try disabling the UAC (User Account Control) and in your case, rebooting. If that doesn't work and you can't find a better answer here, you can optionally click the Emergency Help button at the top of this page. Our support hours are 9 - 9 central time 365 days a year; including Christmas.

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