Why is Windows Speech Recognition not working?

Question

I've used Windows Speech Recognition in the past on my laptop - using the built-in microphone and also via the WO mic software which "makes" ones Android phone into a microphone. I've done a decent amount of dictation in this manner. I believe this was done with Windows 7.

Now I am running Windows 8.1 and after some time of not doing any dictation I'm trying to run the dictation, but am having all sorts of problems. This is in spite of the fact that I bought a NC-181 headset by Andrea Electronics - one of the higher rated headsets for voice dictation.

One quirk I've noticed that I suspect may be somehow involved is that under "Levels" the microphone is always being reset to 21. It seems that Windows Speech Recognition is the culprit that changes this - no matter what else I may set it to - which is strange, since Speech Recognition is what is having trouble hearing it.

Any ideas on where the problem lies? I've included a screenshot below of the "levels" issue I mentioned above:

Solution

The problem appears to be that Microsoft Speech Recognition is using old microphone levels from when it ran the microphone configuration wizard in the past. Each time the program opens it resets the microphone levels to this stored value.

Go to Control Panel > Ease of Access > Speech Recognition. Click "Advanced speech options" in the sidebar on the left side of the window. A new window should pop up, called "Speech Properties". In the bottom right of that window, click "Configure Microphone", and it should start the configuration wizard which will have you speak a phrase and adjust the microphone for speech recognition accordingly.

Hopefully that solves the problem.