The PowerMic II is black in color and has labeling on the microphone itself that can be used to identify the firmware version and Vista compatibility. The serial number beginning with the following prefixes indicates firmware version 2.02, or higher, which makes the microphone VISTA compliant. The Powermic II still is not recognized by Dragon. Your guidelines about compatibility mode cannot be used as the powermicII does not have a driver but has its firmware included in it. There is on the internet a firmware update from a while ago and I did apply it and it did not help.
Nuance PowerMic II with Mac Speech Recognition
Although Nuance has attempted to limit use of the PowerMic to their Windows based medical product, it is possible to use the PowerMic with other products with these limitations:
1. In other Windows and Mac applications you will have use of the microphone, speaker, left and right click keys and the track stick.
2. With the exception of the use in a Mac described below, the other buttons on the PowerMic will not be functional in anything except the Dragon Medical application.
Using the PowerMic with a Mac
We recently discovered that a wonderful utility made for the Mac (USB Overdrive) will allow you to program buttons on the PowerMic to accomplish a variety of functions which may be useful for the Mac user, especially in the realm of speech recognition. With this product, you can program PowerMic II buttons to do any of the following:
- Click a mouse button
- Press Key (emulates a keyboard key or key combination)
- Type Character
- Keyboard shortcut (a variety of standard keyboard shortcuts on the Mac)
- System Control (volume up or down, eject, brightness, power key, etc.)
- Launch application
- Open file or folder
- Open Pre-defined item
- Open URL
- Execute AppleScript
- Execute iTunes Command
As you can imagine, with so many options, including the ability to execute AppleScript, the possibilities are virtually endless.
Our own use of the utility has involved programming the center key of the PowerMic to toggle the microphone off an on. Since virtually any MacSpeech command can be assigned a keyboard shortcut, this leaves open the possibility of programming a PowerMic II to emulate virtually any of your MacSpeech commands.
For more information about USB Overdrive, please visit the website at www.usboverdrive.com. Although you can use the program for free and it sits in your systems preferences (does not need to be launched regularly) you will have to endure a 10 second delay every time you open the utility to change it unless you pay the $20 registration fee. When you see how great this product is, you will gladly part with the 20 bucks!
Incidentally, we find that USB Overdrive works great with Mac OSX version 10.7 (Lion).
Order the PowerMic II
Learn more about the Nuance/Dictaphone Powermic II at our dedicated Powermic II page, but realize that most of this information pertains to use of the microphone in the Windows environment. If you have learned enough and want to order, please use the links below.
Dictaphone PowerMic II
Price: $
Quick Tutorial
1. Example One: Program the PowerMic to toggle you microphone on and off
- Open your MacSpeech Product and assign a keyboard key to toggle the microphone. This is done by going to .... Pick a key that you don't often use or one that would be convenient should you decide to actually poke at a key to toggle your microphone (I chose the right arrow).
- Close MacSpeech since you won't be able to assign the key with USB Overdrive when it's already in use by MacSpeech
- Be sure your Dictaphone PowerMic II is plugged in.
- Open your system preferences and open USB Overdrive from the 'other' category
- Once USB overdrive is open, push the central (red) button on the PowerMic II; you will see that 'button 3' will highlight on the USB Overdrive list
- On the upper of the two drop-downs on the right select 'Press Key'
- Insert the cursor in the box underneath and then press the right arrow (or other key you assigned in Macspeech); it should show up in the text box
- Close the USB Overdrive window - you're done!
Powermic Ii Drivers
2. Example 2: Coming soon ...
Working as IT support tech I had many clients reporting that their Dragon MedicalOne doesn’t work on their computers, phones or tablets. If you are one of them – do not worry. Let me share with you the most common issues I’ve seen with Dragon MedicalOne and how you can try to fix those problems.
Citrix Plug-In vs. “ClickOnce”
When troubleshooting issues with Dragon Medical One it is important to be aware of the fact that there are two different types of this application: Citrix Plug-In vs. “ClickOnce” local version. Some troubleshooting steps may vary depending on the type of application you have installed on your device, while others will be the same for both versions. The easiest way to find out which version you are using is by looking at what you have installed in “Control PanelPrograms and Features” on your Windows computer or tablet.
“ClickOnce” locally installed Dragon will look something like this:
And Citrix Plug-In (usually two of them) will look something like this:
There is also Nuance PowerMic mobile app that can be installed and used on your smartphone or tablet. Always make sure you have correct version of the application installed on the device of your choice, before troubleshooting further.
Corrupt Dragon Medical One Installation
Powermic Ii Driver License
If you are getting an error “The application is missing a file and must be restarted from the deployment location”, chances are your Dragon install is corrupt and you need to reinstall the application. To do that, first, go to Control Panel and uninstall Dragon Medical One.
Next, navigate to C:Users$your user name$AppDataLocalApps folder and delete or rename 2.0 folder. The 2.0 folder may store installation information for other .Net based applications besides Dragon. Therefore, to be safe, I prefer to rename 2.0 folder instead of deleting it. This way you can always go back and undo the change if something goes wrong.
After you’ve renamed 2.0 folder, reinstall Dragon Medical One and verify that it is working properly. If it still doesn’t work, try to delete the following registry key: “HKEY_LocalSoftwareWow6432NodeNuance” and then repeat the steps above to reinstall Dragon.
Poor Speech Recognition
If you are experiencing noticeably poor speech recognition, verify that the Dragon app is using the correct microphone. Make sure that the Nuance PowerMic is selected as recording device, and not the built-in laptop or desktop mic. For example, you might be speaking into your hand-held Nuance PowerMic, but if your recording device is set to built-in laptop mic and your laptop lid is closed, that microphone won’t do a very good job picking up your voice. You can verify which recording device is used by Dragon at the application login screen:
On the other hand, if you don’t have any external recording devices and you use built-in microphone to dictate, you may want to consider getting a good microphone to improve your speech recognition and productivity. Most of my clients use either Nuance PowerMic II or PowerMic III for their dictation. Both are very high end top quality microphones specifically designed to work with Dragon dictation software. PowerMic devices conveniently have multiple buttons to perform useful dictation functions such as recording, pausing, transferring text, moving cursor, changing lines or type-in boxes, and more. You can check out current prices for these mics here: Nuance PowerMics
(these are Amazon.com affiliate links).
Record Button Doesn’t Work on PowerMic
This issue is most common with Citrix Plug-in version of Dragon Medical One. Remove and then re-install the Nuance Citrix plug-ins or install the latest versions of the plug-ins to get this resolved. This usually tends to happen if you get your Citrix Receiver reinstalled or updated or after Windows installs some of the automatic system updates.
Unable to Uninstall Nuance Citrix Extension Plug-ins
If you are not able to remove Nuance Citrix plug-in extensions, try to run the installer and choose “Repair” option. After running repair, you should be able to uninstall or reinstall the plug-ins. If it doesn’t work, you can try to delete the following registry key:
HKEY LocalSoftwareWow6432NodeNuance.
Damaged USB Cable or Port
If your Nuance PowerMic microphone is constantly cutting in and out during dictation you may have a damaged USB cable, USB connector, or USB port. You can try to move the microphone to a different USB port. If this solves the problem, than you have a bad USB port. If you are still having issues, check the USB cable and the connector. Just wiggle the microphone and see if the mic is disconnecting or if you hear the system notification sounds as if you were connecting and disconnecting a USB device. Replace the cable if necessary. I found this PowerMic repair kit on Amazon that comes with replacement cable and required tools. The whole repair process took me less than 5 minutes. You can also watch my video to see how I did it:
Enable access to microphone in Privacy Settings
If you are getting error “You cannot continue recording because an internal audio error has occurred. Please try to restart recording”, try to do what it says – restart your recording. If dictation still doesn’t work, open Privacy Settings and verify that Dragon MedicalOne app can access your microphone. Make sure that the access to microphone is turned on overall and that the Dragon app has access to microphone as well:
Questions…
There you have it! These are the most common issues with Dragon Medical One dictation software that I frequently run into. I hope this information was helpful, and if so, please let me know in the comments section below. Also, if you didn’t find an answer for your problem or if I missed something, feel free to ask me in the comments below. I’ll try my best to assist you with your problem. And don’t forget to share your own tips if you find other useful solutions for Dragon issues. Thanks for checking out my article. Have a great day!