# Microsoft Agent



## curt8403 (Dec 27, 2007)

this message is to inform you about a program available for Windows computers from Windows 98 through Vista. It is called Microsoft Agent, and is an interactive program that can convert text to speech, and recognizes voice input so that you can interact with your computer via voice only. 
Microsoft Agent is a technology developed by Microsoft which employs animated characters, text-to-speech engines, and speech recognition software to enhance interaction with computer users. Thus it is an example of an embodied agent. It comes preinstalled as part of Microsoft Windows 2000 and later versions. Microsoft Agent functionality is exposed as an ActiveX control that can be used by web pages.

Microsoft Agent was first introduced in Microsoft Bob, which used an early version of Agent technology internally referred to as "Microsoft Actor." Microsoft Agent became popular as the initial version of the Office Assistant in Office 97, sometimes dubbed "Clippit" or "Clippy" after the ubiquitous paperclip Agent that shipped with the software. However, Bob Actors or Office 97 assistants are incompatible with Office 2000 and later versions, and vice-versa. The current version of Microsoft Agent was quietly released on MSDN in 1998. It was embedded in Microsoft Office using Visual Basic starting with Office 2000, although this use did not include Agent's much-touted speech synthesis or recognition capabilities.

Microsoft Agent characters are stored in files of the .ACS extension, and can be stored in a number of compressed .ACF files for better World Wide Web distribution. Microsoft Office 97 and Microsoft Bob Actor characters are stored in files of the .ACT extension.
The speech engine itself is driven by the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI), version 4 and above. Microsoft SAPI provides a control panel for easily installing and switching between various available Text to Speech and Speech to Text engines, as well as voice training and scoring systems to improve the quality and accuracy of both engines.
Microsoft makes four example Agents available for download at its developer web site. They also shipped with Microsoft Office up to version 2003 as the Office Assistants and with Windows XP as search assistants. New Agent characters can also be created using Microsoft's development tools, including the Agent Character Editor. Agents can be embedded in software with Visual Basic for Applications and in web pages with VBScript, and automated tools for the purpose of simplifying this exist. However, web page agents are only compatible with Internet Explorer, since alternative browsers like Opera or Mozilla Firefox do not support ActiveX. Additionally, users of Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and above or owners of Microsoft Office 2000 and up are the only ones who have Agent software pre-loaded on their computers; others have to download the software and install it manually.

There are a huge number of applications that work with Microsoft agent, and a huge number of characters available. I will list them in another post.


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## curt8403 (Dec 27, 2007)

*A word of warning before we start: Installing Microsoft Agent on your computer is irreversable. Once installed, Microsoft Agent is a Part of your operating system.
*Having said that, I should mention that I have never had any trouble from installing Microsoft Agent on any of my computers.
Let's get started installing: 

Here are the system requirements
*Required:
*Microsoft Windows® 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT® 4.0 (x86), or Windows 2000 (Newer versions of windows will work as well)
Internet Explorer version 3.02 or later 
A Pentium 100-megahertz (MHz) PC (or faster) 
At least 16 megabytes (MB) of RAM 
At least 1 MB free disk space for the core components 
An additional 2-4 MB free disk space typically for each character you install. 
An additional 32 KB free disk space for each language component (dll). 
*Recommended:
*An additional 1.6 MB free disk space if you plan to use the Lernout & Hauspie® TruVoice Text-To-Speech Engine for speech output 
An additional 22 MB free disk space if you plan to use the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine for speech input 
A Windows-compatible sound card 
A compatible set of speakers and microphone 
The First step is to install the Core Components.
 
Downloading and installing any Microsoft Agent components for your own use on a single computer is allowed by, and subject to, the terms of the End-User License Agreement. 
Also, please note that you won't see any character appearing on your computer screen as soon as you install *Microsoft Agent* or run one of the Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows Me operating systems. This is because *Microsoft Agent*, by itself, is really just a software _technology_ rather than a complete, integral software _application_ that automatically does something.
Download and install the core components of Microsoft Agent by clicking the link below. Note, you do not need to install these core components if you are using one of the Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows Me operating systems. The Microsoft Agent core components are already installed on your computer.

 Download the Microsoft Agent core components (395 KB exe)

The next step (optional) is to update the program with language files for other languages
Localized language components are libraries (DLL files) that add support for the dialogs, windows, tooltips, and balloon text of the core components in an additional language to the default English support. To add a language to the core components, select it from the list below and click the download link. Note, that this localization support alone will _not_ make Microsoft Agent characters speak audibly in these languages via text-to-speech - to do so, a Text to Speech Engine would also be required.
This link takes you to the Microsoft Agent user download page, where you can download language files.

http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/downloads/user.aspx#intro

Now you need to download one or more agents (animated characters) for your computer. there are 100s to choose from

http://www.msagentring.org/chars.aspx

To make the characters speak, you need a Text to Speech engine, which can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/downloads/user.aspx#intro

You will also need the Speech support application version 4.0 for controlling the voices of your characters. 
Install the SAPI 4.0 runtime support below if you are using the Windows XP operating system and intend to use any of the speech components here with Microsoft Agent.
Also, install this SAPI 4.0 runtime support if you intend to use the L&H TTS3000 engines with the Microsoft Agent Genie, Merlin, Peedy and Robby characters. These characters are compiled to use the L&H TruVoice engine as the default speech output engine and the SAPI 4.0a runtime is necessary to set these characters' TTSModeID property to use the TTS3000 engines. Other Microsoft Agent characters may also require this SAPI 4.0 runtime support to set their TTSModeID property.

 Download the Microsoft SAPI 4.0a runtime binaries (824 KB exe)

*Speech recognition engines:*

Speech recognition engines provide speech *input* capabilities for Microsoft Agent. At this time Microsoft provides a single U.S. English speech recognition engine for use with Microsoft Agent. To use this engine you should have a Pentium 120-MHz PC (or faster). Click the link below to download this speech engine.

 Download the Microsoft® Speech Recognition Engine (6 MB exe)

*Speech control panel:*

The Speech Control Panel enables you to list the compatible speech recognition and text-to-speech engines installed on your system and to view and customize their settings for your use. When you install the file, it adds a speech icon to your Control Panel that you can open. Note that this application will only install on Windows® 95, Windows 98, Windows NT® 4.0, and Windows 2000 systems.

 Download the Speech Control Panel (927 KB exe)

you now have installed all the components of Microsoft Agent, and are now ready to install applications that utilize Microsoft agent


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