Hi Charles, Well, one thing Microsoft has done in Windows 8 that is superior to XP is they have a new API called UI Automation which acts as a bridge between the graphical controls on your screen and your screen reader. It is for this reason that all the virtual intercept drivers and off-screen models that Jaws, Window-Eyes, Supernova, etc were using before are no longer necessary. Your screen reader can now get the identity of any control and its status directly from the Windows API. Unlike MsSAA, which is now deprecated, UI Automation is now a core part of the Windows API so software developers don't have to do anything special to make their Windows 8 applications screen reader accessible. They just have to follow some basic standards and guidelines.
UI Automation is in part why Narrator works so much better in Windows 8 than prior versions. All of Microsoft's flagship applications like Internet Explorer, windows Live Mail, Wordpad, Notepad, Microsoft Office 2010, use UI Automation so they are suppose to be screen reader friendly out of the box. A lot of the apps you can download for Windows 8 are fairly screen reader friendly because they use UI Automation. I found a few that needed some accessibility improvements, but by and large I think once UI Automation becomes more mainstream we will see access improve on Windows 8 and later versions in general. Microsoft SAPI has gotten a nice over hall as well. SAPI 5.5 comes with a bunch more voices and they are light years better compared to the SAPI voices for XP. Some of the new SAPI voices are almost as good as the Vocalizer/Realspeak voices that comes with Jaws and they are free. Plus they work with the SAPI 5 enabled games. While not necessarily an accessibility improvement per say I think the new voices is one reason to consider an upgrade. Another thing about Windows 8 is there are a lot of new Windows 8 hot keys to do various things such as Windows+f to find a file, Windows+c to go to the charm bar, Windows+i to open your settings, Windows+q to search your apps, Windows+tab to cycle throughopen apps, Windows+w to search your settings, etc. Basically, there are loads of hot keys available to get around and use Windows 8 without the mouse or a touchscreen. Something else that improves the access of Windows 8 is being able to pin commonly used applications to the task bar. Let's say you use Internet Explorer all the time. You can press the context menu key on it right arrow to "Pin This Application to the Task Bar" and it will always be on your Task Bar and you don't have to go hunting through the Start Screen to find it.Even better if it is the first item pinned to your Task Bar pressing Windows+1 will jump directly to Internet Explorer no matter where you are in Windows 8. Cool eh? Cheers! On 4/30/13, Charles Rivard <wee1s...@fidnet.com> wrote: > How is Windows 8 more accessible than XP? Also, is it more stable? How > well do older games that we have purchased run using Windows *? > > One thing I will say is that Windows Narrator has undergone vast > improvements over what was in XP. > > -- > If guns kill people, writing implements cause grammatical and spelling > errors! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.