Use Voice Access to Control Windows Without a Keyboard

Voice access is a Windows 11 feature and is separate from voice typing, which only dictates text. The microphone must be a working input device.

Get-CimInstance Win32_SoundDevice | Select-Object Name,Status
Get-PnpDevice -Class AudioEndpoint | Select-Object FriendlyName,Status
Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Speech_OneCore\Settings\VoiceAccess' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object * -ExcludeProperty PS*

The settings page turns on the feature and offers the first-run tutorial. After that, **Win+H** opens voice typing and voice access has its own bar.

Start-Process ms-settings:speech
# Accessibility > Speech > Voice access > On
Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Speech_OneCore\Settings\VoiceAccess' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Enabled
Get-Process VoiceAccess -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Name,Id

**Voice access wake up** turns listening on. **Show numbers** labels every clickable element with a number, which works even in apps that ignore keyboard focus.

# say: voice access wake up
# say: show numbers
# say: click 12
Get-Process VoiceAccess -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Name,Id,StartTime
Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech_OneCore\Settings\VoiceAccess' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object * -ExcludeProperty PS*

Voice access works offline with an installed speech pack. Downloading it avoids the network dependency and improves accuracy on a slow connection.

Start-Process ms-settings:regionlanguage-languageoptions
Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object Name -like 'Language.Speech*' | Select-Object Name,State
Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name 'Language.Speech~~~en-US~0.0.1.0'

The bar can start with Windows for a user who cannot use a keyboard. That setting is what makes the feature usable as the only input method.

Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Speech_OneCore\Settings\VoiceAccess' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object RunOnStartup,ShowOnStartup
Get-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Property
Start-Process shell:startup

Clicking, scrolling, dictating and switching apps are the four actions that must work. Test each one once, in that order.

# say: click start
# say: scroll down
# say: switch to notepad
# say: type hello
Get-Process VoiceAccess,Notepad -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Name,Id