Microsoft Agent

Last updated
Microsoft Agent
Original author(s) Microsoft
Initial releaseSeptember 8, 1997;27 years ago (1997-09-08) [1]
Final release
2.0 / October 12, 1998;26 years ago (1998-10-12) [2]
Operating system Microsoft Windows
Available inMultiple languages
Websitehttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/lwef/microsoft-agent and web.archive.org/web/20050402034116/http://www.microsoft.com/products/msagent/default.asp

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. It came pre-installed as part of Windows 2000 and later versions of Microsoft Windows up to Windows Vista. It was not included with Windows 7, and was completely discontinued in Windows 8. Microsoft Agent functionality was exposed as an ActiveX control that can be used by web pages.

Contents

The theory behind the software came from work on social interfaces by Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves at Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information. [3]

Version history

Interactive character technology was first introduced in Microsoft Bob, which used an early version of Microsoft Agent technology internally referred to as "Microsoft Actor". It was the code used in the initial version of the Office Assistant in Microsoft Office 97. [4] Microsoft Agent was subsequently created by Tandy Trower in an attempt to offer technology that was more flexible and available to third-party developers to include in their applications and web pages. [5] The software release also included four interactive characters as well as a utility that enables developers to assemble their own characters and interactions. [6] [7]

Microsoft Agent replaced the original Microsoft Actor code in Office 2000, although this use did not include Agent's much-touted speech synthesis or recognition capabilities or any of the four Microsoft Agent sample characters. Instead, the Office team created their own characters, including one named "Clippit" (commonly dubbed "Clippy"). However, Microsoft Bob Actors and Office 97 assistants are incompatible with Office 2000 and later versions, and vice versa.

The initial version of Microsoft Agent was quietly released on MSDN in 1997. [1]

Technology

Microsoft Agent characters are stored in files of the .ACS extension or in a single .ACF file for character definitions, and multiple .ACA files (one per animation) for better World Wide Web distribution. [8] Microsoft Office 97 and Microsoft Bob Actor characters are stored in files of the .ACT extension. Microsoft Agent character definition files are stored in files of the .ACD file extension, and are generated by the Microsoft Agent Character Editor.

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. [9]

Microsoft provided four agent characters for free, downloaded from the Microsoft Agent website. These were called Peedy, Merlin, Genie, and Robby. [6] Some characters also shipped with Microsoft Office up to version 2003 as the Office Assistants and with Windows XP as search assistants. New Microsoft Agent characters could also be created using Microsoft's development tools, including the Agent Character Editor. [10] 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. [11] However, web page agents were only compatible with Internet Explorer, since alternative browsers like Opera or Mozilla Firefox do not support ActiveX.

Support after Windows XP

In Windows Vista, Microsoft Agent uses Speech API (SAPI) version 5.3 as its primary text-to-speech provider. (In previous versions of Windows, Agent uses SAPI version 4, which is not supported in Windows Vista and later.) Beginning with Vista, multilingual features of Microsoft Agent under a particular language version of the OS are not supported; that is, Agent will function in other languages only under a localized Windows version of the same language. [9]

Microsoft announced in April 2009 that all Microsoft Agent development and support will be discontinued with the release of Windows 7. [12] Microsoft is no longer offering licenses or distributing the SDK.

However, due to customer feedback, Microsoft provided an installation package of the Microsoft Agent core components for use on Windows 7. [13] The download supported SAPI 5.3 compatible speech engines, and also contained the character “Merlin”, which shipped with Windows Vista.

See also

Microsoft

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Office Assistant</span> Assistive tool for Microsoft Office

The Office Assistant is a discontinued intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office that assisted users by way of an interactive animated character which interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Office, in Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft FrontPage. It had a wide selection of characters to choose from, with the most well known being a paperclip called Clippit. The Office Assistant and particularly Clippit have been the subject of numerous criticisms and parodies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multilingual User Interface</span> Integrated localization feature in modern Windows systems

Multilingual User Interface (MUI) enables the localization of the user interface of an application.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WordPad</span> Basic word processor formerly included with Microsoft Windows

WordPad is a word processor software designed by Microsoft that was included in versions of Windows from Windows 95 through Windows 11, version 23H2. Similarly to its predecessor Microsoft Write, it served as a basic word processor, positioned as more advanced than the Notepad text editor by supporting rich text editing, but with a subset of the functionality of Microsoft Word. Microsoft removed WordPad in Windows 11 24H2 and it has no successor.

This is a comparison of both historical and current web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost.

Trident is a proprietary browser engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer, developed by Microsoft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Defender Antivirus</span> Anti-malware software

Microsoft Defender Antivirus is an antivirus software component of Microsoft Windows. It was first released as a downloadable free anti-spyware program for Windows XP and was shipped with Windows Vista and Windows 7. It has evolved into a full antivirus program, replacing Microsoft Security Essentials in Windows 8 or later versions.

Microsoft Windows SDK, and its predecessors Platform SDK, and .NET Framework SDK, are software development kits (SDKs) from Microsoft that contain documentation, header files, libraries, samples and tools required to develop applications for Microsoft Windows and .NET Framework. Platform SDK specializes in developing applications for Windows 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003. .NET Framework SDK is dedicated to developing applications for .NET Framework 1.1 and .NET Framework 2.0. Windows SDK is the successor of the two and supports developing applications for Windows XP and later, as well as .NET Framework 3.0 and later.

Retained mode in computer graphics is a major pattern of API design in graphics libraries, in which

The Speech Application Programming Interface or SAPI is an API developed by Microsoft to allow the use of speech recognition and speech synthesis within Windows applications. To date, a number of versions of the API have been released, which have shipped either as part of a Speech SDK or as part of the Windows OS itself. Applications that use SAPI include Microsoft Office, Microsoft Agent and Microsoft Speech Server.

Windows Vista has many significant new features compared with previous Microsoft Windows versions, covering most aspects of the operating system.

Remote Desktop Services (RDS), known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier, is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allow a user to initiate and control an interactive session on a remote computer or virtual machine over a network connection.

In computing on Microsoft platforms, WoW64 is a subsystem of the Windows operating system capable of running 32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows. It is included in all 64-bit versions of Windows, except in Windows Server Server Core where it is an optional component, and Windows Nano Server where it is not included. WoW64 aims to take care of many of the differences between 32-bit Windows and 64-bit Windows, particularly involving structural changes to Windows itself.

Tandy Trower is the current CEO of Hoaloha Robotics LLC, a robotics company based in Seattle, Washington, developing an autonomously mobile, socially interactive robot, to empower senior citizens to live more independently.

The Microsoft text-to-speech voices are speech synthesizers provided for use with applications that use the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) or the Microsoft Speech Server Platform. There are client, server, and mobile versions of Microsoft text-to-speech voices. Client voices are shipped with Windows operating systems; server voices are available for download for use with server applications such as Speech Server, Lync etc. for both Windows client and server platforms, and mobile voices are often shipped with more recent versions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cortana (virtual assistant)</span> Discontinued personal assistant by Microsoft

Cortana was a virtual assistant developed by Microsoft that used the Bing search engine to perform tasks such as setting reminders and answering questions for users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows App SDK</span> Software development kit from Microsoft

Windows App SDK is a software development kit (SDK) from Microsoft that provides a unified set of APIs and components that can be used to develop desktop applications for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 version 1809 and later. The purpose of this project is to offer a decoupled implementation of capabilities which were previously tightly-coupled to the UWP app model. Windows App SDK allows native Win32 (USER32/GDI32) or .NET (WPF/WinForms) developers alike a path forward to enhance their apps with modern features.

References

  1. 1 2 "Microsoft Agent Released to the Web for Free Download". Microsoft. 1997-09-08. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  2. ↑ "Microsoft Agent 2.0 Adds a More Human Touch to Computing". Microsoft. 1998-10-12. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  3. ↑ "Social science research influences computer product design". Stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 2018-03-13. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  4. ↑ Feldman, Brian (2016-10-31). "Clippy Didn't Just Annoy You — He Changed the World". New York . Retrieved 2024-08-06.
  5. ↑ "Microsoft Agent 2.0 Adds a More Human Touch to Computing". Stories. 1998-10-12. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  6. 1 2 QuinnRadich (2019-08-23). "Animation Lists for the Characters Available from Microsoft - Win32 apps". learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  7. ↑ QuinnRadich (2019-08-23). "Creating Characters for Microsoft Agent - Win32 apps". learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  8. ↑ QuinnRadich (2020-08-19). "Load Method - Win32 apps". learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  9. 1 2 QuinnRadich (2020-08-19). "Speech Input Support - Win32 apps". learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  10. ↑ QuinnRadich (2024-03-25). "Using the Microsoft Agent Character Editor - Win32 apps". learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  11. ↑ "MASH - Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper". bellcraft.com. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  12. ↑ "Removal of Microsoft Agent". Microsoft Docs. Microsoft. May 31, 2018. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  13. ↑ "Microsoft Agent-enabled programs do not work in Windows 7". Microsoft Support. Microsoft . Retrieved May 2, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.