We spent what amounted to more than two hours with a polite, bright tech support representative who offered a workaround. The issue was related to a known bug in Windows Vista. Or had it? We were caught in a catch-22 of circular commands after rebooting more than a dozen times. It took more than 10 minutes to install Visual C++ 8.0 Runtime, only to find out it hadn't fully installed. Unfortunately, Windows Vista installation was a nightmare. Installing Dragon 10 on two Windows XP machines took around 20 minutes without incident. And if you already have the latest version on a PC, don't overwrite it with a lesser-featured version that may be bundled with a new, supported digital voice recorder. Make sure to uninstall an earlier version of Dragon if you have one.

The $1,199 Legal edition also helps you dictate briefs and court documents. We wish a USB headset were an option you'll have to buy a dongle to hook up the mic-in headset to a USB slot. We tested the $899 Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 10, which adds support for forms, networking capabilities for an office, and the choice of a standard or Bluetooth headset. Preferred Mobile adds a digital voice recorder. Preferred, for $199, includes software voice commands as well as support for mobile devices.

If you only need a tool to type as you talk and don't want to dictate commands to software or for Web searches, then opt for the $99 Standard edition of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. You'll also need a noise-canceling headset microphone, a 16-bit or equivalent sound card, and a DVD drive. (ViaVoice for the Mac, which uses Nuance's technology, is no longer updated.) It requires 512MB of RAM and 1GB of free hard-drive space. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 runs only on Windows XP or 2000 SP4 or higher or on Vista, so Mac users are out of luck.

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