Introduction

The purpose of this page is to direct developers toward the Microsoft Agent downloads that are specifically of interest to them, such as the SDK documentation, code samples, the Agent Character Editor (to create their own custom Microsoft Agent character) and the Linguistic Information Sound Editing Tool (to improve the mouth synchronization of characters when used with spoken audio files).

The Microsoft Agent core components, language libraries, and speech engines are available from the end-user download page.

SDK documentation for Microsoft Agent

The documentation for the Microsoft Agent SDK (Software Development Kit) is available for download in compiled help format (.chm file extension). Other formats and sources of this documentation are also available.

 Download the Microsoft Agent SDK documentation in compiled help (.chm) format (708 kB .zip archive)

Code samples:

There are code samples for HTML/Web pages/VBScript/JScript, Microsoft Visual Studio (Microsoft Visual Basic®, Visual C++® and Visual J++), Microsoft Office and Microsoft Visual FoxPro environments that are available for your inspection and download. Also, the C++ header files for Microsoft Agent can be found with the C++ code samples.

Agent Character Editor

The Agent Character Editor lets you create your own custom Microsoft Agent characters from your source bitmap images. Despite its name, it really isn't an editing tool so you can't just edit a character that exists already.

 Download the Microsoft Agent Character Editor (1 MB exe)

Linguistic Sound Editing Tool

The Linguistic Sound Editing Tool (LISET) enables you to generate phoneme and word-break information from spoken audio (.WAV) files to support improved lip-syncing character animation.

 Download the Microsoft Agent Linguistic Information Sound Editing Tool (6.2 MB exe)

Character data files for Genie, Merlin, Peedy and Robby

The Microsoft Agent character data files for Genie, Merlin, Peedy and Robby, are available for download and installation on your computer from the end-user download page. These contain all the animations and character data for each of the characters in a single .ACS format file.

The .ACF/.ACA format character data files for Genie, Merlin, Peedy and Robby are also available for loading dynamically via HTTP by applications and Web pages from the Microsoft Agent Web site. These files are not available for download to host on your own Web server(s) or site(s). You may request these only if you have a current distribution license for Microsoft Agent.

Note, these four Microsoft Agent characters of Genie, Merlin, Peedy and Robby, are copyrighted creations of Microsoft. Use of these character data files, in either format, is allowed by, and subject to, the terms of the Microsoft Agent End-user License Agreement. Additionally, refer to the Permissions page and Frequently Asked Questions for information about the permitted uses of images of the Genie, Merlin, Peedy and Robby characters.

Additional resources and links

Here are additional resources where you can find out about third-parties developers with tools, characters, services and products available for Microsoft Agent. Several speech technology providers also offer speech engines (both text-to-speech output and speech recognition) that support Microsoft Agent.

Go to the Microsoft Agent downloads for end-users page

Back to the Microsoft Agent home page