How do you move Dragon NaturallySpeaking to a new computer?

Moving Dragon to a new computer takes three things: your user profile, which holds what Dragon has learned about your voice, a valid license, and the installer with its serial number. The profile is the part worth taking, because a new profile starts from nothing. The license is the part that can block you, so deactivate it on the old computer before you start on the new one. Nuance's Windows help does not give a complete move procedure in the pages we could open, so the steps below separate what Nuance documents from what you must check yourself.

The profile is what you are protecting

Nuance defines a user profile as the set of files Dragon uses to process your speech, which stores information such as the type of microphone you use and your custom words ¹. A profile built on your old microphone and room is tuned to them. A fresh profile on the new computer starts without that tuning, so the first weeks of dictation will be worse.

Dragon also backs up your profile by itself. In standalone mode, it makes a full backup "every 5 saves" by default ². Because the profile is the thing you are moving, copy the whole profile and not a single file from it. The guide to setting up Dragon explains how to find the profile in Manage User Profiles.

Deactivate the license on the old computer first

Nuance's help for Dragon for Mac describes the deactivation step: click the Dragon icon in the menu bar, select Help, then Deactivate. The dialog then confirms that "your license has been successfully deactivated" ³. That page is for the Mac product, which Nuance discontinued in 2018, so use it only as a guide to the idea. We could not confirm the matching menu path for Dragon for Windows from a Dragon 16 source.

Licence rules depend on the edition, and this is where a move goes wrong. The University of York's IT services describe a Dragon Professional Individual licence that lets the user install Dragon "on up to 4 devices for their own use, including at work and home" ⁴. That is one university's reading of one edition. If your licence is for a company, or is a managed deployment, the rules are set by the organization.

If your deployment uses Nuance Management Center, check with your administrator before you move anything. Nuance says that in that mode Dragon "needs an internet connection to reach the NMC server" ⁵, so the old and new computers both need to reach the server while you change over.

Install and activate on the new computer

The installer asks for your serial number during setup. In the Dragon 16.1 install wizard, you enter the product serial number before you choose your region and folder ⁶. Keep the serial number and your proof of purchase somewhere you can find them, because you will need them if activation fails.

Activate before you copy the profile across, so you know the license is working on the new machine.

Bring the profile across, then clean up the old one

After uninstalling Dragon from the old computer, your profiles stay where they were. Nuance says that "your user profiles remain on your local drive after uninstallation" ⁷. You may keep them, which gives you a copy to restore from, or delete them by hand once the new profile is working.

Nuance's Dragon 16 help describes how to remove leftover profiles from the local folders, but the pages we opened do not give a step-by-step procedure for copying a profile between computers. Many guides describe an export and import through Manage User Profiles. We did not confirm those steps from Nuance, so verify them in the help for your version before you rely on them. If you cannot confirm a transfer route, keep the old computer's profile backup and install the new profile fresh.

Upgrading on the same machine works differently. Back up the profile before you open it in a new version, because Dragon upgrades profiles when you open them.

What to do, step by step

1. Note your serial number and find your licence type. Check whether your copy is standalone or managed.
2. Back up the user profile from the old computer, including its backup folder.
3. Deactivate the license on the old computer, using the Deactivate option in its Help menu if your version has one, and confirm the dialog.
4. Uninstall Dragon from the old computer only after the deactivation is confirmed.
5. Install Dragon on the new computer with the serial number, then activate it before you go further.
6. Copy the profile across using the route your version's help describes. If you cannot find one, start a new profile and correct your first week of dictation with the commands in the guide to Dragon commands.

If the new installation does not start, the causes are in the question on why Dragon is not working. For the separate task of choosing a microphone for the new setup, read the question on the best microphone for Dragon. The profile and the microphone must match, so change the profile if the microphone changes.

Dragon is also sold in editions that do not follow this pattern, such as the subscription and cloud versions covered in the overview of dictation software. If you are moving a perpetual license from one computer to another, the rules above apply. If your copy is a subscription, ask the seller how the seat moves before you deactivate.