Cause

If this is happening on a machine using an IBM Cyrix processor and the original version of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950), then the problem is the processor. The original build of Win 95 will only work 100% correctly with true Intel processors. Problems with alternate processors, like the Cyrix, are exaggerated at speeds above 200MHz.

Resolution

There are 3 things known to correct this problem:

In the BIOS, look for a section called "Chipset Features Setup". It will contain an option called Cyrix "CPUID"Instruction The choices are "Enabled" or "Disabled". "Disabled" MUST be selected in order for NaturallySpeaking to work!

Get an updated version of Windows 95.

Get an Intel processor.

Some machines do not have the CPUID option in the BIOS setup, or it only has the options "Enabled" and "Auto". In this case, the computer may have a program installed for the Cyrix chip that will trick the computer into believing it is a Pentium and not a Cyrix. If this is loaded then NaturallySpeaking it will still crash.

To disable it you need to go into the Autoexec.bat. There will be a line in there that is simply "686". There is no path for it or anything, just the numbers. Most likely it is the first thing in the Autoexec.bat. If you REM it out the program will not load on start up and NaturallySpeaking will work properly.

The way to tell it is disabled properly is if you go into the Control Panel and then into System, the processor should be listed as "80486". It should not say "Pentium" or "IBM 686 Processor".