Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This appears to be a good product, but the installation process is positively EVIL.
First of all, despite the way it is shown on the Amazon page, you do NOT need to purchase a headset; it comes with one in the box. The suggested Plantronics unit may or may not be better, but you do not NEED it.
Installation is a many, many step process. Enclosed in the box is a slip of paper with a relatively short "product ID" that is required for the first step of many.
The first step is "Eligibility Verification", and the instructions say this can be done online. Perhaps **someone** could do this online; I certainly could not, despite many attempts. Perhaps this would have worked better if the my son's school email address ended in .edu, or if their list of schools included high schools. Perhaps. I do not know.
Further confusing the issue is that the box says Nuance, and so does the website - but the emails come back from ScanSoft or custserv-uk@myidentit-e.com
I would **HIGHLY** recommend skipping the online method entirely, and going straight to the phone. The Tech Support phone number is not included in the box anywhere that I noticed, so I will leak the secret:
call 800-654-1187 during Eastern Time Zone business hours.
Once you have them on the phone, they can generate and give you the much longer (17 characters) Serial number. You will need that just to install the software.
You might want to keep them on the phone while you run the installation from the disk; you will need to talk to them AGAIN.
Once the software is installed and started, it generates a 16 character "Machine Fingerprint" which is tied not merely to your current computer, but the current configuration of the computer. You will need to give this code to Tech Support for the NEXT step.
They should now be able to give you the (are you ready for this?) SIXTY character activation key. I made no attempt to do this online; based on my efforts trying to get a serial number, it hardly seemed worthwhile.
Once THAT has been entered properly, the program will run. It will then walk you through a series of tutorials and training exercises, all of which I skipped because I want the software setup for my son, not for me.
Despite the lack of training, after a minute or two of talking, it worked surprisingly well.
I need to test this with my son for a while to see how useful it will be. For now, I would give it an F- for pain of installation and time required. If I had simply had this sent to him at school, I do not think there is any way he would have successfully installed it.
Using the above notes, it should be possible to complete the installation process about an hour.
Keep in mind that the installation is apparently tied to the exact configuration of your computer. If you do something that Nuance interprets as "evil", like add memory or delete the recovery partition (thus changing the apparent size of your hard disk) you will have to go through the activation process AGAIN. If you purchase a new computer, you have to go through the entire process again - if they let you.
I would rank Nuance on a par with PTC (Paranoid Technology Company), the publishers of MathCAD for unspeakably evil installation procedures. They expect us to trust them that the product is useful (despite the usual shrinkwrap license that says it is probably NOT), but they clearly do not trust us at ALL.
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