Microsoft's Speech recognition in Windows Vista seems to be biased.
I first show it working in Word 2007, then in Notepad,...and then try to get it to work in OpenOffice. There is only one microphone, so the audio you hear is the same audio the OS hears.
This is marketed as an OS feature, paid for as an OS feature and yet it does not work at all when used with OpenOffice.
Here demonstrate how it works nicely with Word 2007 and even Notepad, however when trying the same tests with OpenOffice Writer, it simply just craps out.