Windows Speech Recognition

[#1]

Has anyone here tried WSR on Windows 8 yet?
I tried setting up on a friends computer yesterday and while things initially appeared to work, it didn't last long.
The big issue that's appeared is that once WSR is launched,  no other programs will start and numerous other actions appear to have no effect.
However,  once WSR is closed,  every action taken then occurs.
Anyone else seen this?
Alternatively, any recommendations of some proper speech recognition software?  (Dragon is my primary candidate).

[#2]

I have been using Dragon 11 for some months for doing my OU course work.
80% of the time it works well then just seems to trip up itself a bit. For dictation I'm getting around 95%+ accuracy but using some commands seems to cause a few issues at times.
Generally it works very well.
If you know someone who is at school or a student elsewhere then you can pick up a copy for a tad under £70 (including headphones) at www.software4students.co.uk.

[#3]

I installed 12.0 today,  and it's  got an update to 12.5  :),  which breaks its activation >:(.
So once again, I get to waste a couple of hours installing and reinstalling software to deal with problems with product activation which those people who pirate it don't have!
Another example where anti piracy measure only impact paying customers,  while doing nothing to stop piracy.