Checkbox Text Contain Words “ON” or “OFF” in Various Dialog Boxes in Windows

When you open a dialog box containing checkbox or radio button controls, such as the Folder Options dialog’s View tab, the checkbox text labels may be appended with the word “-ON” or “-OFF” depending upon whether the option is enabled or not.

This happens if one of the Ease of Access features like Speech Recognition and/or Narrator is running. Narrator is a text-to-speech utility for users who are blind or have impaired vision. Narrator reads what is displayed on your screen: the contents of the active window, menu options, or the text you have typed. If you don’t plan to use Narrator, you can turn it off using the following steps:

Press Win-Key + U keys. In the Utility Manager window that opens, select Narrator… and click the Stop button.

Also, uncheck the following options:

  1. Start automatically when I log in
  2. Start automatically when Utility Manager starts

Click OK.



In Windows 10, the UI would be different. Press WinKey + U to open Narrator settings page, and turn off “Narrator” toggle button.

checkbox text on off narrator

Also, open the classic Control Panel – Speech Recognition page. Turn off “Run Speech Recognition at startup” setting.

checkbox text on off narrator


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a ten-time recipient of the Microsoft MVP award in Windows Desktop Experience (Windows Shell), from 2003 to 2012. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

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