Voice Attack on Windows 10

I sometimes used Voice Attack with ED during 2015 and in the beginning of 2016 on Windows 8, but didn't heavily rely on it. In summer 2016 I upgraded to Windows 10 (just before the free update offer expired). I haven't used Voice Attack since the upgrade but didn't really miss it.

Now in autumn I finally got my Oculus Rift and now I am solely playing ED in VR, which I think is a match made in heaven. The problem is, I still have to peek at my keyboard for a few commands since I couldn't map all actions to the buttons of my flight stick (no HOTAS yet). Therefore I wanted to use Voice Attack again, but got some "Speech Engine Access Error" when trying to start it.

My question: do I need to activate Cortana in order to use the windows speech recognition engine that Voice Attack needs on Windows 10? Or can I somehow use Voice Attack without activating Cortana?
 
I sometimes used Voice Attack with ED during 2015 and in the beginning of 2016 on Windows 8, but didn't heavily rely on it. In summer 2016 I upgraded to Windows 10 (just before the free update offer expired). I haven't used Voice Attack since the upgrade but didn't really miss it.

Now in autumn I finally got my Oculus Rift and now I am solely playing ED in VR, which I think is a match made in heaven. The problem is, I still have to peek at my keyboard for a few commands since I couldn't map all actions to the buttons of my flight stick (no HOTAS yet). Therefore I wanted to use Voice Attack again, but got some "Speech Engine Access Error" when trying to start it.

My question: do I need to activate Cortana in order to use the windows speech recognition engine that Voice Attack needs on Windows 10? Or can I somehow use Voice Attack without activating Cortana?

You are missing the English (US) speech recognition and English (US) text-to-speech on your system.

Go to Settings > System > "Apps & features". Select "Manage optional features" and then "Add a feature".
Install English (US) speech recognition and English (US) text-to-speech.
 
If you have Windows installed in a language where speech recognition isn't supported, you might have to switch to english and install it. I had to do that on the original Windows 10 release (Swedish). I don't know if it is changed in Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607 update).
 
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Thanks for the responses. I was indeed missing the "English display language" pack for speech recognition. After installing it, Voice Attack works again.

Thanks again for the help!
 
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