The locked-down
dictation guide
If you work in a corporate RDP, Citrix, or VDI session, you've watched dictation tools fail one after another. This guide explains exactly what your IT department blocked, why they were right to block it, and which paths still exist for getting spoken words onto a locked-down screen.
What IT actually blocks, and why
Clipboard redirection — off
Citrix's Client clipboard redirection policy, when set to Prohibited, disables copy-paste between your local machine and the session entirely; many orgs instead allow only one direction via Restrict client clipboard write / Restrict session clipboard write (see Citrix ICA policy reference). RDP has the equivalent in Group Policy. The goal is stopping data exfiltration — and it's legitimate. But every dictation tool that delivers text by pasting is collateral damage: no clipboard channel, no paste, no text.
Extensions and installs — banned
Browser-extension dictation dies twice: extensions are typically blocked by policy inside the session, and even when allowed, the extension runs inside the remote browser — where there's usually no microphone passthrough. Installing software on the golden image needs a change request most workers will never win.
Win+H — dead on arrival
Windows Voice Typing needs internet access to Microsoft's speech service from the machine it runs on, and inside a hardened session it's commonly disabled or has no microphone to listen to. Result: the built-in option fails exactly where you need it.
The paths that still work
1. Run on your side of the glass
The key insight: your local PC's keyboard still works in the session — keystrokes are the one channel that's never blocked, because without them you couldn't work at all. A dictation tool that runs on your local machine and emits synthetic keystrokes into whatever window has focus inherits that channel. Nothing installs in the session; the session can't tell dictated keys from typed ones.
2. Type, don't paste
Key-by-key injection is slower than a paste but immune to clipboard policy. Blabb implements four input methods — you pick one globally and can override it for a particular app — so text lands in nested sessions, terminals, and stubborn legacy apps alike. One hard limit applies to every tool: Windows UIPI blocks input into elevated/admin windows — an OS security boundary nothing should cross.
3. Keep the audio local too
If your desktop is locked down, your content is sensitive by definition — sending the audio to a cloud dictation service reopens the exact hole IT closed. On-device processing means the only thing that ever reaches the session is the typed text, same as if you'd typed it. That's Blabb's architecture: speech recognition and AI cleanup both run on your PC, and nothing you dictate is uploaded. The one thing that needs the network is the licence check — once verified, dictation runs offline for 30 days before Blabb has to check again.
Check your own acceptable-use policy before dictating work content on a personal device — the technical path existing doesn't override your employer's rules.
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