Thinkpads Forum

I'm assuming there is no mic jack on the w510, as I haven't found one. Am I missing it...or is the only external mic possible now USB? If so...would it make that much difference for voice dictation speed if I used the usb3 vs. usb2? Also, is there a way to get Dragon Naturally Speaking 8/standard to work on win7pro by installing it somehow to run in xp mode? I had it working fine on my x41 with xp.

The headphone jack on W510 is a combined headphone/mic jack. What you need is a splitter cable that will have two separate headphones and mic jacks on the other end.

Something like this:
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-Ed ... a-p/256059

Don't confuse it with the common headphones splitter that allows you to connect two sets of headphones/speakers. The one you need must have 4 sections on the plug and will have some indication, which jack is for headphones and which for the mic.

You might want to try Windows Virtual PC, XP Mode:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtua ... nload.aspx

I have installed on my T410 for a couple of older programs.

-OR-

VMWare Player:

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

I've seen those b4, but didn't know what they were designed for. thanks.

Daniel Davis wrote:I'm assuming there is no mic jack on the w510, as I haven't found one. Am I missing it...or is the only external mic possible now USB? If so...would it make that much difference for voice dictation speed if I used the usb3 vs. usb2? Also, is there a way to get Dragon Naturally Speaking 8/standard to work on win7pro by installing it somehow to run in xp mode? I had it working fine on my x41 with xp.

I tried to install Dragon Naturally Speaking 8, Standard via xp mode, but it just wouldn't let me install it. I'm really annoyed with win7. Had I known I'd have to buy nearly all new software to run on it, I would never have bought the machine to begin with. I strongly suspect win7 was designed that way to fill the coffers of software companies when all that was needed was a driver or a line of code to make it work....evidence... Powerdesk version 6 which runs just fine...once or twice...then you have to go to task manager to delete one instance of it to get it to work. That's a lousy reason to have to buy a new version. Ditto wordperfect and many others.

VMWARE looks promising. Have you tried it?

nikki605 wrote:You might want to try Windows Virtual PC, XP Mode:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtua ... nload.aspx

I have installed on my T410 for a couple of older programs.

-OR-

VMWare Player:

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

What's the error when you try to install it? There's usually a bypass or something, such as extracting the installer manually, or modifying an MSI entry somewhere.

Daniel Davis wrote:I tried to install Dragon Naturally Speaking 8, Standard via xp mode, but it just wouldn't let me install it. I'm really annoyed with win7. Had I known I'd have to buy nearly all new software to run on it, I would never have bought the machine to begin with. I strongly suspect win7 was designed that way to fill the coffers of software companies when all that was needed was a driver or a line of code to make it work....evidence... Powerdesk version 6 which runs just fine...once or twice...then you have to go to task manager to delete one instance of it to get it to work. That's a lousy reason to have to buy a new version. Ditto wordperfect and many others.

VMWARE looks promising. Have you tried it?

No, I haven't tried VMWare since Virtual PC XP Mode works for me.