Shoutbox

I have the exact same problem (when script starts, it says: "An error occurred while initializing Speech Recognition, please make sure you have Microsoft Speech 5.1 installed."), and I tried all the above.

BUT... I then discovered some strange things......
because I'm from Holland and therefore have a Dutch version (vista, office2003), I DON'T seem to have the "Speech" option available in the "Tools" menu (offcourse it's all in Dutch here, so "Tools" shows as "Extra" and "Speech" translates to "Spraak", but that has nothing to do with the functionality, it's just a minor User Interface difference).
However, the Help-page (in Word) says that the Speech recognition feature is only available in the English (US), Chinese and Japanese versions of Office!!
(But after that, the help-page continues with explaining in detail how to use it.... ??WTF??)

I can certainly understand that the Speech Engine only "understands" English commands, but I DON'T understand that this functionality is completely DELETED from all other (non-US) versions. I have no problem giving commands in English.

I always thought that all the different language-versions out there only affected the User Interface part, in many progs you can even switch the UI-language at runtime.
So I never-ever expected that these non-US versions are completely ripped of basic functionality.

Especially if you consider that, even in the Dutch language version, you sometimes come across menu-items or help-pages or options-screens that are still (partly) in English, both in Vista and in Office.
So the Microsoft policy seems to be: we translate as much as possible,  and all the parts we didn't do (yet), you'll just have to cope with the original US version. Which is fine by me.
So why not also include the original Speech Recognition Engine in English? I have no problems with that, what-so-ever.
(Better an English version then none at all, right?)

So, in short, all users of non-US versions of Vista/Office:
Don't look any further! It's just not there!!!

The strangest thing, however, is that text-to-speech IS installed and working!! It speaks out with the "Microsoft Anna - English (United States)"-voice, offcourse with English accent. But in the opposite direction (speech-to-text, i.e. giving Speech-commands)  it's not available.

So if anyone knows how to remedy this and have this engine up-and-running, please let me know!
I would really appreciate it!

I have a brand new (4 days old) Packard Bell Easynote MH36-U-004 laptop with 4 GB ram, 320 GB harddisk, built-in webcam+microphone, wide-screen, pre-installed Vista Home Premium (with all recent updates), so that shouldn't be the problem.