Hi, I can completely empathize with your plight and express gratitude to the one who drew my attention to your message. I bet if you enter on the speech portion of control panel you get an error message too. I just had this problem over the Summer myself and thanks to some wonderfully helpful friends I found the answer. What you need to do is search for the "userlexicon" file of course without the quotes. When in the search results list view hit delete key on it and it'll ask you if you're sure you want to vanquish it. Say yes. What you'll notice is that at first it'll look like it's gone but then it'll seem to reappear. Don't worry about this. After you've deleted it empty your recycle bin and reboot. Then launch narrator with windows key and u and see if it runs. I myself had to employ the fix twice before it actually worked. I also found it easier to use the windows search feature to find the user lexicon file rather than trying to navigate to it via windows explorer but that's just me. I'll paste the official information regarding this problem below for your information. I know how maddening this problem can be so I hope this fix works for you. Once it's fixed you'll no longer have any errors in the speech portion of control panel either. Hope this helps. Robin http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;838659 FIX: Speech engines do not work and you receive an error message when you open Speech Control Panel View products that this article applies to. SUMMARY When you use speech engines to do recognition or synthesis, you can save the CurrentUserLexicon file on your local hard disk to store additional words. Sometimes, the CurrentUserLexicon file can become corrupted. When this happens, the speech recognition (SR) engine and the text-to-speech (TTS) engine do not work. This article describes possible causes and fixes the problem with a hotfix file. SYMPTOMS The speech recognition (SR) engine and the text-to-speech (TTS) engine do not work in any applications. When you open Speech Control Panel, you may receive the following message: The requested task cannot be carried out because the necessary speech engine could not be created. Please select a different engine and/or a different audio device. CAUSE Currently, the specific cause of the problem is not known. However, the following are possible causes: List of 3 items An incorrectly configured audio device A corrupted recording profile A corrupted user lexicon database (CurrentUserLexicon) list end To determine whether CurrentUserLexicon is corrupted, use a hexadecimal editor to open the .dat file that is located in the following folder: \Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Microsoft\Speech\Files\UserLexicons If the file contains only 0x00 byte values and contains no other data values, the user lexicon database has likely been corrupted. WORKAROUND To work around this problem, delete the corrupted user lexicon file. The system then re-creates an empty version of the file. After this, the SR engine and the TTS engine can function. Note If you delete the user lexicon file, you lose any user-specific vocabulary that was previously added. To delete the user lexicon file, delete the following folder: \Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Microsoft\Speech\Files\UserLexicons RESOLUTION A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Only apply it to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next service pack that contains this hotfix. To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[LN];CNTACTMS Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question. The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel. Date Time Version Size File name -------------------------------------------------- 09-Mar-2004 22:26 6.0.1518.0 696,320 Sapi.dll STATUS Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section of this article. The information in this article applies to: List of 3 items Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Microsoft Windows XP Professional Microsoft Speech Software Development Kit (SDK) 5.1 list end ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anna K Byrne" <annakb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 9:33 PM Subject: Narrator For many months, the only time Narrator will speak on my computer--Windows XP home, JFW4.51 through JFW5.10--is after the Windows XP shut down music. If for some reason the shut down gets befuddled, Narrator will talk me through it smooth as silk. I have tried starting windows with JFW turned off, then bringing up Narrator without loading JFW; no joy. I have OpenBook on my system, had and removed Kurzweil--and Adobe 6.01, all of which include voices in addition to JFW. Could one of these have set some kind of flag that needs to be unset? Obviously, Narrator isn't broken, because it is so wonderfully conversant after shut down begins. Any clues would be appreciated. Thanks, Ann -- To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx