-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: [NVDA] NVDA 64-bit with on-device image description alpha
build now available
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2025 17:29:22 +1000
From: Quentin Christensen <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: NVDA Screen Reader Discussion <[email protected]>
Hi everyone,
We're bringing on-device image description to NVDA! More on that further
down.
As you may know, up until now, NVDA has been a 32-bit program. We are
working towards NVDA 2026.1 being 64-bit. Almost all consumer PCs made
in the last decade or so are 64-bit and Windows 11 only runs on 64-bit
processors.
We've hit a milestone today - nvda_snapshot_alpha-52930,7778bb6c.exe now
available, and is a 64-bit program! You can test it out from:
https://download.nvaccess.org/snapshots/alpha/
Note, it IS still an alpha build, so there may be issues and bugs - but
we wanted to let you know as we know a number of people are interested
in trying it out. And we wanted to let you know a couple of caveats with it:
1) If you install a 64-bit build of NVDA, you cannot safely downgrade to
2025.3 or earlier. You will need to uninstall NVDA and re-install the
older version.
2) Windows 10 is now the minimum Windows version supported.
3) It won't work on ARM devices running Windows 10.
4) It won't work if you have a 32-bit version of Windows
5) This version is a "2026.1" alpha, so existing add-ons won't work.
6) When you upgrade, you may lose the secure desktop configuration
(NVDA's configuration it uses on the logon screen) which may revert to
the default config.
Now, to the exciting part: On-device image description!
Press NVDA+Windows+, to get an AI generated image description. This is
generated locally on the device - no information is sent to the internet.
To use these image descriptions, NVDA will need to download
approximately 230MB of data from the internet for the model the first
time you enable it.
To enable AI generated image descriptions:
1. Press NVDA+control+g to open NVDA's general settings
2. Press CONTROL+TAB to get down to "AI Image Descriptions"
3. Press TAB to "Enable image captioner".
4. Press SPACEBAR to enable this option.
5. Press ENTER to close settings.
6. NVDA will prompt to download the data it needs. Press ENTER to allow
this.
The data is downloaded (there is no progress bar, we are aware of that)
and NVDA advises when it is done. After that, you can start using the
image captioner.
Note that this ONLY gives English descriptions currently. Our plan is to
bring internationalisation to this as soon as possible.
There are other exciting updates already in this alpha for 2026.1 you
can check out:
- Report when multiple items can be selected in a list control
- The status bar can be reported in VS Code
- Performance improvements on ARM64
- Spelling errors can be reported with a sound or Braille rather than speech
- VirusTotal scan results are available in the details for add-ons in
the add-on store
- In the add-on store you can see the latest changes for add-ons.
If you do test out this build, please do let us know how you find it.
And don't forget to file any bugs you find on GitHub:
https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues
Kind regards
Quentin
--
Quentin Christensen
Training and Support Manager
NV Access
www.nvaccess.org <http://www.nvaccess.org>
Training: https://www.nvaccess.org/shop/
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