Hello all,

 

I use DPI 15.61 to dictate into Word running under Parallels on an old Macbook Pro. A few months ago, I upgraded to Windows 10 and Microsoft Office 365. DPI performance initially took a hit, but after some tweaking (including a bunch of suggestions from the forum) everything was running smoothly...until now!

 

Over the past week, Word 365 has become unusable: The application almost immediately stops responding as soon as I attempt to dictate into it, and I have to reboot the virtual machine. WordPad, however, works just fine.

 

I checked every setting I could think of and created a new user profile, but none of that mattered to Word 365. So I decided to install a local version of Word 2016 instead--and ran into exactly the same problem. (I've since uninstalled Word 2016 and am back to Office 365.)

 

Just today I uninstalled and reinstalled DPI 15.61, but still the problem persists: I launch Dragon, then launch Word...and as soon as I try to dictate into the application, it freezes up and I have to reboot the virtual machine.

 

I'm now relegated to using WordPad exclusively, at least until I can figure this out. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

Even in the best of times, Mac computers are a bit finicky when using Dragon in a Windows virtual environment. If Dragon works, reinstalling won't make any difference because is not the problem.

Did you remove Word 2016 and then reinstall Microsoft 365, which isn't normally required? If not, we recommend doing so. You might also try creating a new Dragon profile; strictly for test purposes. Our Ver. 15 customers receive a complimentary copy of our exclusive Dragon Installation/Training Guide, which includes pictorial details on the installation process, a list of Dragon commands organized by category and pictorial details on fixing 30 sandtraps.

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Thanks, Lunis! I did create a new profile, but that had no effect. I have not uninstalled and reinstalled Microsoft 365, however--so I will do that next, and report my results.

Once I've reinstalled, do you think I should create yet another profile for good measure?


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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

Since you have ruled out your user profile as being the culprit, we wouldn't bother creating another one after reinstalling Microsoft 365

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OK. Hope the reinstall works; I was really enjoying Microsoft 365 while it worked. Since Word 2016 had exactly the same problem, though, I wonder if there is some deeper issue with the Windows 10 environment. I used CCleaner to eliminate a bunch of registry issues, but again no improvement. WordPad works fine, but Word is dead in the water...

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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

Oh, one more quick question before I reinstall Microsoft 365: Do you think I should try uninstalling Microsoft 365 and reinstalling Word 2016 first? Or is Microsoft 365 the way to go? (I initially tried Word 2016 because I wondered if it might play more nicely with DPI 15.61...)

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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

I wonder if you have a system restore point captured from more than a week ago, when things were working fine. Maybe you could restore an earlier version of the setup from when things were working fine?

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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.

Unfortunately not--but I'm going to create one the next time I have a working system! I suppose I could always resort to "Reset this PC" if the Office 365 reinstall doesn't work. I really only use this VM for dictation, so Dragon and Office are the only significant programs running on it.

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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

DO NOT reinstall Word 2016. It probably won't hinder but it definitely won't help.

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Ha! Message received. :-) Thanks, Lunis.

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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

What (virtual) resources are given to the guest running win10? 

When the Great Freezing began, I was using:

Automatic (Recommended)
For this Mac -- 4 CPUs, 6 GB RAM
Hypervisor: Parallels
Adaptive Hypervisor checked

I experimented with the following settings:
Manually assigned 8 GB RAM
Shifted to Hypervisor: Mac
Unchecked Adaptive Hypervisor

None of these changes made a noticeable difference to the problems I was having with Word, so I reverted to my original settings. What would you recommend in general, though?

I was all set to uninstall and reinstall Microsoft 365 yesterday, when the Great Freezing mysteriously stopped (for the most part). I have no idea why (maybe after a few restarts some of the changes I made finally had an effect?), just as I have no idea why it began in the first place--though now that I think about it, the problem began when I was working on a document of some 2000 words. It continued after I began working on a fresh new document, however.

I am puzzled, and apprehensive about this happening again. I've created a restore point now that things are working smoothly again, however, so at least I will have an insurance policy of sorts!

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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

Try setting nr. of vcpu for your guest to 2. I think it will improve performance and certainly if you guest has the same nr. of vcpu as you host has logical cores.

Thanks! Yes, I'm using an old MacBook Pro with a 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 processor that has 4 cores. I'll try setting the number of cores assigned to the vm to 2 instead of 4 and see what happens. I've been watching the Resource Monitor in Parallels to see if there is any pattern to the freezing (excessive RAM or CPU usage on the Mac or Windows VM side, for example), but to be honest I haven't been able to spot anything obvious.

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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

Well, I've had some more freezing incidents (both with 2 cores and 4 cores assigned to the VM), and have noticed a couple of things:

The issue is definitely worse when dealing with a complex document, for example a longer one or one that contains tracked changes, comments, etc.

Resource Monitor does *not* necessarily show that the system is maxing out CPU or RAM usage on either side (Mac or Windows) when these problems occur; yet Word stops responding nonetheless. At the same time, DPI 15.61 also becomes completely unresponsive; I cannot even turn the microphone off, and must reboot the VM.

Lunis, do you think it would still be worth uninstalling/reinstalling Office 365?


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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro

Uninstalling/reinstalling Microsoft 365 is simple and quicker than you might think. However, we are wondering if you might have a problem with 1 of your RAM sticks that won't necessarily show up. With the exception of processor intense utilities like Dragon, an MIA stick of RAM might allow you to run everything with the rest of your RAM. It might be time to have your computer bench tested by an expert

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Well, I ran the Mac's internal hardware tests (which include a RAM test) and it came up roses; and I've also uninstalled and reinstalled Microsoft 365 (it *was* easy!). I'm certainly willing to believe that a RAM problem could still be lurking, so if I keep running into the same problem I'll go the expert bench-testing route -- or maybe just bite the bullet and replace this machine, which dates all the way back to 2014!

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DPI 15.61/Windows 10/Parallels Desktop 18 on a MacBook Pro