You must have a language pack that supports speech recognition! This is non-negotiable.
If you don't mind, I would love if you could patch to the latest version and try again. It won't work, but I am hoping that the error message will be more useful.
I have read that it is possible to install language packs on "normal" versions of Windows 7 via various hacks, but that's all I can tell you. You will have to research it yourself. Be warned that it may be considered illegal to do this, or it may damage your installation of Windows, I don't know for sure, and I have never tried it so I cannot say if it works. My guess is that it is possible to do it though.