I have just been looking around in Vista, specifically, to see whether there was a way of configuring headsets, etc., as there is in XP... anyway, I found what I was looking for, but made another discovery....
It looks to me as though Vista has built-in voice recognition - is that correct? Or have I misinterpreted? Control Panel > Sounds > Recording tab > click on your input device > Configure - which then reveals a screen for Speech Recognition Options. The first heading is "Start Speech Recognition: Start using your voice to control your computer"
Has anyone else seen/tried this out yet please? Seems clever
There are some good, comical, videos of people "attempting" to get it to work with any proficiency ... though the best one was MS's own demo where the PC seemed to have a mind of its own.
I would say you need an old style BBC monotone voice ... do not make erm noises and do not swear or it goes off in a huff.
StarTrec it ain't, but it can be fun ... for a day.