Thanks Krypto for the info.
I was looking at VXI talkpro but checked windows7 product support pages to see which headsets were compatible with windows 7 first. I didn't want to purchase something online in case there was a problem with the headset. I ended up going shopping and searching for headsets which had "speech recognition" on the packaging. I also check various product review sites before heading out shopping. I was lucky that my main PC that I brought 3 years ago and got built to handle multimedia had HD audio so that whatever headset I chose would have few issues. I settled on Logitech ClearChat USB and after a little bit of use windows 7 speech recognition has few problems with my Aussie accent lol
I don't see the need for a stand alone program for my main PC but may need one for my old laptop that is too old for windows 7. In the future I see that voice commanding and speech recognition will be used more widely as is the way of the future. They simultate this in movies set in the future and it will eventually become a reality.
Thanks again for your help