Computers/Windows XP/Support/Weird

A Ghost in your Machine

When I say weird, I mean weird.

A client called with a problem today. It seems that her computer had suddenly started typing out words on its own. Not garbage, mind you, but real English words. Whenever she was trying to type search terms into Google or write up a letter in MS Word, random words would appear.

Since it was complete words, that ruled out a stuck key on the keyboard. Hmmm...she had already run a virus scan with no results. It happened even if her Internet connection was off and unplugged from the wall jack.

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.

Finally, I turned to my Oracle of last resort, Google. Search result #1 was this Lockergnome article from January 2002. You need to scroll down to the item "New Random Typing Virus?"

It seems that someone had seen this one before. A quick read of the item pointed me in the right direction. It seems that some Windows XP computers, both his and mine were from Dell, come with Speech Recognition enabled by default. The words being inserted were the computer's interpretations of whatever room noise happened to be occurring at time. Turning off the Speech Recognition function solved the problem.

This DELL tech note gives the specific steps to removing the Dictation services on their machines.

The easiest way to disable the feature is to run MS Word, Select the Tools Menu, and then uncheck the Speech item.

Once again, the Internet, and Google, comes through in a pinch.