Kurzweil 1000 Crashes in Menus, Dialogs, or When Moving Around in a Document

This article applies to:

• Kurzweil 1000

Symptoms

When the user moves through menu items or dialog boxes, the Kurzweil 1000 sometimes crashes.

Cause

This problem is most frequently caused by the AT&T FlexTalk speech engine running under SAPI version 4.

Solution

Do not use a FlexTalk voice in Kurzweil 1000. In the Kurzweil 1000's Settings menu, choose Reading Voice. In the dialog that appears, change the voice so that a speech engine other than AT&T's FlexTalk is being used. Click OK. Return to the Settings menu, choose System Voice, and again make sure that an engine other than FlexTalk is being used. Click OK. Go to the Settings menu a third time and choose Save Settings. Click the OK button.

You can ensure that FlexTalk does not get accidentally used again by removing it from the list of SAPI voices. In Windows Explorer, go to the diagnostics directory (usually C:\Program Files\Kurzweil Educational Systems\Diags) and run the SAPIReg application. A dialog window will appear with a list box showing the installed speech engines. In that list box, find AT&T FlexTalk and select it. Next, tab to the Remove button and click it. Finally, tab to the Save button and click it. Reboot your computer and try running the Kurzweil 1000 again.

More Information

AT&T developed its FlexTalk speech engine years ago, when Microsoft's Speech Application Programming Interface (SAPI) was at version 2. Since then, Microsoft has introduced SAPI versions 3 and 4. Although FlexTalk works well with SAPI 3, it frequently crashes with SAPI 4. AT&T no longer updates FlexTalk, so this problem is not going to be fixed.

The crashes occur when a FlexTalk voice is made to speak, then quickly stop speaking, then quickly start again. A user can trigger this by moving rapidly through a menu, through the controls of a dialog box, or between letters, words, or lines of a document.

Because of this problem, Kurzweil 1000 version 6 does not install FlexTalk if it detects SAPI 4 on the system. Kurzweil 1000 version 7 does not include FlexTalk at all. However, owners of previous versions of the Kurzweil 1000 may have both FlexTalk and SAPI 4 on their system, and can experience this problem.

History

Creation Date: February 18, 2003

Last Modified: February 18, 2003