Clean , working installation of Nat. Speaking.

OK, I think I've cracked it.

After a lot of heaving and grunting I managed to reinstall Dragon  
Naturally Speaking into a fresh user account with the help of sidenet.

This time I carefully documented the steps I took so as to be sure it was  
reproducable.

What worked:

wine-20050524; sidenet-1.8.1; Dragon NS v7 prefered En. and v7 pref Fr
Ensoniq 1371 pci "soundblaster"

wot wont:
winecfg based wine releases ; more recent sidenet on previous above wine.
muse5.1 cmipci (too quiet)

Required natives: comdlg32.dll only.

That it in a nut shell , here's the log:

INSTALLATION NOTES FOR NATURALLY SPEAKING 7 PREFERED
====================================================

installed wine is 20050524

new user account with no wine

su <username>
cd ~

untar sidenet 1.8.1
chown <username> users.

## cp some prev download files from other user space , save time on  
sidenet.

cd wine-config-sidenet
./setup
#sidenet : option [3] select y to  IE6 MSinst DCOM98 fonts

sidenet runs OK, reboots, displays sid-site in ie6: success!

bash#  ~/.wine $ wcmd
WCMD Version 0.17

D:.wine>ver
WCMD Version 0.17

D:.wine>path
PATH=c:\windows;c:\windows\system;c:\windows\command
D:.wine>exit

cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
ln -s /mnt/dvd h:

wine h:setup

installshield says req reboot , ok restarts

into reg code entry dlg OK.

#file select dlg crashes , rerun and accept default folders.

installation runs cleanly and exits , then throws following to console:

bash #  ~/.wine/dosdevices $ fixme:ddeml:DdeConnectList  
(1,0xc000,0xc000,(nil),(nil)): stub
fixme:ddeml:DdeQueryNextServer (0x1,(nil)): stub
fixme:ddeml:DdeQueryNextServer (0x1,(nil)): stub
fixme:ddeml:DdeDisconnectList (0x1): stub
err:wineboot:runCmd Failed to run command (0)
err:wineboot:ProcessRunKeys Error running cmd #1 (0)

#ignorable.

bash #  ~/.wine/c/Program Files/ScanSoft/NaturallySpeaking/Program $ wine  
natspeak.exe

"cannot find windows/system/comdlg32 "

OK exits cleanly.

#find comdlg32.dll and put in system.

wine natspeak # straight in !!!
enter user general training.

#NS cannot control the volume level although it thinks it does.
#use alsamixer or similar to ensure capture is on MIK and capture level  
around 80% (YMMV)

84 vol gives 22 quality rating but message says too high , basic training  
sticky.
req reduce vol to 82: fine

Able to complete general training and begin dictation into DragonPad.
Excellent results.

HTH, Have fun .