Microsoft Agent

Microsoft Agent

Microsoft Agent software being used in the Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper.
Name	Microsoft Agent
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Initial release	September 8th, 1997 (27 years ago)
Latest version	6.1.7600.16426
Latest version release date	September 21st, 2009 (15 years ago)
Written in	C++
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Discontinued?	Yes

Microsoft Agent is a technology developed by Microsoft that allows for users to interact with animated characters inside applications and web pages. It used text to speech engines to allow the animated characters to speak to the end user. These animated characters were called "Microsoft Agents". It came preinstalled with Windows beginning with Windows 2000, though it was first incorporated into a build of Windows with Windows 98 build 1569. Microsoft Agent continued to release alongside all Windows versions until Windows 7 in 2009, following Microsoft's discontinuation of Microsoft Agent. The latest major release of Microsoft Agent was version 2.0 on October 12th, 1998.

Characters

Microsoft Agent allowed for users of the software to make characters through the Microsoft Agent Character Editor. Four default characters were made by Microsoft on the original page, including Genie, Merlin, Robby, and Peedy. Some other notable characters are those featured in the Microsoft Office suite throughout 1997 to 2003, including Clippy, Dot, or Office Logo. The Windows XP search assistants are also Microsoft Agents, including Rover. Another mentionable Microsoft Agent is Bonzi, a purple gorilla that came bundled BonziBUDDY until its discontinuation. The Bonzi character later received a lot of attention after being a meme following multiple meme videos on it before Vinesauce Joel eventually streamed an XP destruction causing the popularity of the Bonzi character to rise.

File format

Microsoft Agent characters could be exported in the .ACS file extension and served as the character file. There is also a .ACD format used by MACE that is the project file for the character. The .ACF and .ACA file formats are designed for web usage and work by having each character animation downloaded individually.

Vista and Post-Vista support

Windows Vista

With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft Agent experienced changes with its speech and speech recognition. Microsoft Agent was upgraded to support the SAPI 5 Text-To-Speech (TTS) engines.

Windows 7 and later

Although Microsoft Agent was discontinued following the release of Windows 7 in 2009, it was still able to be used via installing Microsoft Agent's components from the Microsoft Agent installer. This allowed for operating systems that came after Windows Vista to run the software. Microsoft also made a hotfix for Windows 7 that allowed for Microsoft Agent to be installed. This version of Microsoft Agent is the same as version 2.0 but with support for Aero and SAPI 5 as the speech engine. The hotfix link was taken down following the end of support for Windows 7 in 2020.

Online resurgence

Following multiple memes of the Bonzi Microsoft Agent character and Vinesauce Joel eventually covering it inside one of his Windows destruction livestreams, a large resurgence of popularity occurred in Microsoft Agent. However, this new activity ultimately lead to the decline of the 2nd Microsoft Agent Community, an entity that had existed since 2001 on Yahoo Groups. Afterwards, many small meme-lord communities existed making meme content out of the Bonzi MS Agent, before eventually dying out.

Afterwards, Spidermanboy13 and Norbika9Entertainment had founded The Microsoft Agent Community sometime in 2015, with Norbika9Entertainment fully taking over by 2016. This community survived until April 2018, when Operation Butler had overthrown Norbika9Entertainment. This lasted until May 25th, 2018, when TMAFE was founded. TMAFE successfully united many Microsoft Agent communities they could find in 2018 and eventually received recognition from the 2nd Microsoft Agent Community as the official successor to them upon being recontacted.

Versions

Version number	Date	Confirmed?	Link
Microsoft Agent Beta	October 28th, 1996	Yes	N/A
Microsoft Agent Beta 2.0	June 18th, 1997	Yes	N/A
Microsoft Agent 1.3 (Beta 3)	June 30th, 1997	Yes	N/A
Microsoft Agent 1.5	September 8th, 1997	Yes	http://tmafe.com/downloads/MSagent_1.5_setup.zip
Microsoft Agent 1.6	1997	Yes	N/A
Microsoft Agent 1.7	1997	Yes	http://tmafe.com/downloads/MSagent_1.7_files.zip
Microsoft Agent 2.0	October 12th, 1998	Yes	http://tmafe.com/downloads/MSagent_2.0_setup.zip

Trivia

• Microsoft Agent utilizes animated desktop assistants alongside text to speech engines.
• Microsoft Agent first came bundled with Windows 98 build 1569 and was beginning with Windows 98 build 1624. It was later re-added to Windows with Windows 2000 build 1701 and continued to be bundled with Windows until Windows 7 build 6469.
• Microsoft released a hotfix for Microsoft Agent compatibility on Windows 7 following announcing the discontinuation of Microsoft Agent.
  • The version in the hotfix is Microsoft Agent 6.1.7600.16426, but a bug causes it to appear as 6.01.7600.16426 in the Properties menu. It is very likely that it is the same bug that makes 2.0's version appear as 2.00 instead of 2.0.
  • The hotfix link was taken down following the end of support for Windows 7.
• Genie, Merlin, Robby, and Peedy were the original four assistants developed by Microsoft, with Peedy being developed for Microsoft Agent 2.0.
• Microsoft Agent 1.5's release build is compiled for release with Visual C++ 5.0 while Microsoft Agent 2.0's release build is compiled for debug with Visual C++ 6.0.
• Despite Microsoft Agent 6.1's and Microsoft Agent 5.2's version numbers, they are still Microsoft Agent 2.0 but with bug fixes and SAPI 5.0 support.
• Microsoft Agent was removed early on in Windows 7's development, as the earliest available build (Windows 7 build 6469) does not contain the files for Microsoft Agent.