Dragon User Profiles: Have you Backed Up Lately?

We’ve had a few clients recently who have suffered a complete computer crash and loss of local data.

This is a reminder that everyone should be backing up their Dragon user profiles.

Without regular backups, you may find yourself having to re-create a new user profile at a time when you need to spend your energies on other tasks (as so often happens when a computer crashes with loss of data). While it does not take long to re-create a profile, if you have hundreds of custom commands (as I do), their loss is deeply tragic.

Speakeasy Solutions suggests, for extra peace of mind, that you either keep a copy of your user profile stored on your network or removable media (i.e. USB memory stick, CD, DVD and so on) that you will not over-write. Such a copy will prove useful in the future should your hard drive completely fail (so that you need not create a brand new user profile). Moreover, Speakeasy Solutions suggests that if you do keep regular backups, that you keep the last two versions at all times (just in case your most recent backup is damaged).

Why backup?

• Loss of user profile data,
• Corruption of user profile data.

We suggest a few different solutions, depending on your setup and preferences.

Methods of backing up:

• If you have a roaming user profile, you will have copies of your user profile on other computers, so you are already backing up, in essence. However, we still suggest you keep an extra copy off-site.
• Set Dragon’s backup location to your network, rather than the default local drive. Dragon, by default, backs up about once per week. However, you cannot rely on this 100% as Dragon’s backup can become corrupt as well (like all data on your computer).
• Export a copy of your profile onto your network or a removable media source (i.e. USB memory stick).
• Use a software backup solution and include your local Dragon user profile in its backup parameters.

How often should you backup? Once per week is ideal, but few do this. Every two weeks is acceptable. Once per month as a last resort (at least you will have a backup).

If you are unsure about any of these procedures mentioned above, feel free to contact Speakeasy Solutions for consultation.

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1. Using Someone Else’s Dragon Profile
2. Using Dragon’s Acoustic & Language Model Optimizer
3. Change the Default Font in DragonPad
4. Loss of Select and Say in Internet Explorer
5. Dragon Disabled by MS Word (loss of functionality)