The following is a blog post I just uploaded concerning my memories of 

Window-Eyes, as well as my feelings about its disappearance.





On May 19, we celebrated Global Accessibility Awareness Day. It is 

ironic that, four days earlier on May 15, GW Micro (VFO) announced the 

news that the Window-Eyes screen reader would cease development. All 

users who were using the commercial version of Window-Eyes would be 

entitled to upgrade to JAWS, with users of version 9.0 or later being 

given the chance to receive a JAWS 18 license at no additional cost. 

Users of the free Window-Eyes for Users of Microsoft Office version, 

such as myself, are an exception and would not be entitled to upgrade to 

JAWS at a discount price.

This news was both sad and, for many, hardly unexpected. After AI 

Squared became a part of VFO Group, Jonathan Mosen interviewed David Wu 

on Freedom Scientific’s FSCast podcast. Mr. Wu was formerly CEO of AI 

Squared and is now VP of Software Business at VFO. While Mr. Wu tried to 

keep the tone very positive and upbeat, reading between the lines made 

it clear to me that JAWS and Zoomtext were VFO’s primary products and 

Mr. Wu seemed a bit less reassuring when discussing MAGic or 

Window-Eyes, although these are clearly my own impressions of the FSCast 

interview from June of 2016. Maybe he didn’t mean to present that 

impression but that’s what I came away with when I heard the interview. 

Perhaps it’s true that JAWS is the world’s most popular screen reader. 

I’ve been a user of JAWS since version 1.0 shipped on several floppy 

disks, along with Eric Damery and Ted Henter providing tutorials on 

cassette tapes, and I’ve seen the program evolve into a powerful and 

capable screen reader. JAWS 18 is most definitely one of the most 

feature-rich screen readers you could install onto your Windows computer 

and its popularity is certainly well-deserved. However, one of the 

things which I value is consumer choice. While I regularly use Microsoft 

Office to perform the majority of my word processing tasks I am grateful 

that we have worthy alternatives, such as the free LibreOffice, to allow 

users to perform similar tasks using quality software. While I respect 

the feature set of Microsoft Outlook I prefer to use Mozilla Thunderbird 

for sending, reading and sorting email while I’m at home.

The same is true for screen readers. I’ve already expressed my 

admiration for JAWS and feel that it’s an amazing access package. 

However, for financial reasons I use NVDA as my screen reader of choice 

and occasionally have used the free version of Window-Eyes for users of 

Microsoft Office. Consumer choice is an important thing when it comes to 

access. One screen reader may meet the needs of an individual more than 

another, for a variety of reasons. Sadly, VFO buying AI Squared has 

taken one of these choices away from us, which I feel is a tremendous loss.

I’ve been a trainer and, to some extent, a user of Window-Eyes since the 

late 1990s. It offered some very unique features and capabilities which, 

in some ways, weren’t always available in other screen readers and I’d 

like to take some time to celebrate the unique features Window-Eyes 

brought to the table.

First, let’s consider the way we browse the Web using our preferred 

browser of choice. Nowadays, screen readers are able to reformat complex 

Web pages and render them in the same way that a word processor opens a 

document, allowing the user to navigate the Web page using standard 

arrow key navigation. This is now a given and something we’ve come to 

expect when using a screen reader on the Web. This capability exists 

with JAWS, NVDA and in VoiceOver on the Mac. However, it was Window-Eyes 

which first offered this feature, a year or so before JAWS implemented 

it, if memory serves. True, in those early days it took a long time for 

some Web pages to load and so the feature wasn’t always a joy to use. 

Admittedly, when JAWS implemented the feature they did it much better in 

those days, with Web pages loading very quickly. Over the years, 

Window-Eyes improved by also loading pages much faster but the point is 

that Window-Eyes pioneered that feature which we all take for granted now.

Window-Eyes was also the first screen reader to support Mozilla Firefox, 

something which we now enjoy with JAWS as well as NVDA.

Window-Eyes is probably the only screen reader with the capability of 

launching with speech, when possible, in safe mode. This is a feature I 

have yet to encounter in other screen readers.

If your system’s volume was muted or at a low level, Window-Eyes could 

be configured to load, forcing the volume to be unmuted and raising the 

volume level. This solves the problem where someone accidentally or 

intentionally muted your speakers, causing a minor nightmare when you 

tried to load your screen reader and receive no speech output. These are 

capabilities I’d love to see in other screen readers, such as NVDA and 

JAWS.

One of my favorite Window-Eyes features is actually something which was 

probably in the earliest versions and was also found in the Vocal-Eyes 

screen reader for DOS. The feature to which I’m referring was known as 

cursor keys. It differed from the other hotkeys in that, with hotkeys, 

the function you assign to a key bypassed that key’s original function. 

In other words, if you assign the hotkey ctrl+L to read the current line 

under the caret or cursor the line would be spoken when the key was 

pressed. However, if you pressed that hotkey while in Word to left 

justify your text the key wouldn’t function, instead reading the current 

line (unless you used the Bypass key first.) However, the cursor keys 

feature was unique in that the original function of the key you chose to 

define would not be lost. Therefore, if you wanted the Home key to speak 

the current character you could assign that function to the Home key, 

without interfering with the key’s original function. When the key was 

pressed, the key would move the cursor to the beginning of the line as 

designed, followed by the function or functions you assigned to that 

key. This allowed for some amazing flexibility which is not even 

available with JAWS, unless you’re willing to learn scripting.

Speaking of scripting, I’ll end my Window-Eyes memories with a 

discussion of that program’s most amazing feature, utilized in a way not 

found in other screen readers.

Starting with version 7.0, Window-Eyes added the ability for its users 

to write customized scripts in order to add additional functionality to 

the screen reader. Many people may be quick to remind me that JAWS has 

had this feature since the very beginning, first with giving users the 

ability to write macros and, starting with JFW version 3.0, calling them 

scripts. While this is true, there are some differences in the way this 

capability was being offered.

First, GW Micro allowed its users, as well as their staff, to upload 

scripts to a central repository on their Web site known as Script 

Central. Later, they made the brilliant decision to do a bit of 

rebranding and scripts, which sound scary and challenging, became apps, 

which sound like a lot of fun. Let’s face it; nobody knows anything 

about what a script is but anybody with a smartphone or tablet is an 

expert on apps. With this change, Script Central became App Central and 

Window-Eyes had its very own, user-friendly app store. Apps were quite 

plentiful, grouped into categories and users could add their own 

comments on the various apps which they liked. Window-Eyes even came 

with an app which allowed for easy navigation to this specialized app 

store. Apps could then easily be downloaded and installed, using similar 

screens which you would encounter when installing any piece of software. 

You could navigate through the Window-Eyes Apps menu to examine the list 

of apps you had installed and could easily remove apps you no longer 

wanted. Apps could even alert you when they had updates and those 

updates could easily be installed. The concept was positively ingenious. 

I never understood why JAWS, with its powerful scripting language, never 

offered a similar repository. In the screen reader’s early days 

Henter-Joyce did offer some scripts on its Web site but this is no 

longer the case. If you want to locate scripts for your copy of JAWS you 

must locate them on third-party Web sites.

To be quite honest, Window-Eyes was far from perfect. In spite of its 

innovative features there were times when I felt I was using a not quite 

ready for prime-time beta, rather than a final release. Of course, no 

software is without its bugs but, to me, it always felt as though 

Window-Eyes had more than its share of them and I sometimes found it to 

be frustrating to use.

In spite of this I still feel that the assistive technology landscape 

has been greatly diminished at having one less screen reader for users 

to work with. It is a regrettable consequence of AI Squared becoming a 

part of VFO Group and I am sorry for all users of Window-Eyes who are 

now forced to switch to a new screen reader.

In closing, I would first like to ask VFO to respectfully consider 

donating the Window-Eyes source code to the community for further 

development. If you feel that you no longer wish to develop the screen 

reader please consider releasing it to the community as there are many 

Window-Eyes users who don’t want to see the demise of their favorite 

screen reader.

Finally, I would like to thank the developers of GW Micro, both for 

their work with Vocal-Eyes for DOS as well as with Window-Eyes. You have 

made an important and memorable contribution to users of blindness 

assistive technology. I sincerely thank you for providing us with a 

unique, easy to use and customizable screen reader.



-- 

-- 

David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist Feel free to visit my 

Web site WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info





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