Do I need to install Speech SDK to be able to do speech recognition, even when I'm using .NET Speech Recognition namespace?

Question

I know that I need to install Speech SDK if I'm using SAPI for spech recognition. But what if I'm using .NET System.Speech.Recognition:SpeechRecognizer class?

Answer 1

System.Speech.Recognition:SpeechRecognizer uses SAPI, so if you don't have SAPI installed by default (i.e., you're running on XP), you'll need to install it. You don't need the entire SAPI dev kit, just the redistributables (SpeechSDK51MSM.exe).

If you need to run on XP, you'll be limited to SAPI 5.1; other versions are bound to the OS.

System.Speech.Recognition:SpeechRecognizer will work well with SAPI 5.1, as well; some features require SAPI 5.3; if you use them, you'll get an exception.