HELP on Microphone Bar [Language Bar]

I hope someone can help me here.

My Microphone Bar is suddenly not working.

I have a Dell with WinXP that I bought a year ago.

I performed the speech text exercise to be able to use the Microphone

Bar with MS Word. Everything has been working fine, no problems.

Then a few days ago, the Language Bar says I have to do the exercise

all over again. As if the audio files associated with the speech text

exercise were gone. I don't know what happened to them.

So I used my Logitech headset to start the exercise again. But the

Language Bar says my headset is not working with the Microphone Bar.

I retested my Logitech headset per its instructions, and it is working

perfectly fine. So it's not the headset.

I have no clue what is going on here, and why the Language Bar won't

cooperate with a perfectly fuctioning Logitech headset.

Or why I have to redo the exercise in the first place.

I hope some kind souls here can help me out.

Thanks, Hal