Windows helps people with visual problems by employing various techniques to make the screen easier to see and by turning a number of common visual cues into sound prompts. There's also Windows arrator, a synthetic voice that describes in words what is happening on the screen. People with hearing problems have the option to specify the use of screen prompts instead of audio cues and warnings.

There are several enhancements that make mice and keyboards easier to use, and people who [rod it impossible to use one or the other can configure Windows to be operated entirely by mouse or entirely by keyboard. When neither mouse nor keyboard can be manipulated with ease there's the option (but only in Windows Vista) of turning on speech recognition, which interprets instructions spoken into a headset microphone both as a means of operating Windows and as an alternative to typing text into applications such as word processors. Speech recognition is not included with Windows XP but it can be bought from third-party software vendors - Dragon Naturally Speaking lO costs about , comes with a headset and microphone (Reviewed in this issue)