WadmodderShalton

Here are two other Microsoft Agent Programs that I've found after this was written. Ultra Hal Assistant - a retail desktop assistant developed by Robert Medeksza which uses OCX files with character graphics for each character. With modifications, one could import Microsoft Agent characters converted to OCX to be used with the program. Agent Molder - a supposedly unreleased software product being made by Rayflex Animation around 1998 to 2000. The product probably never made it out of its beta stages and was quietly cancelled.

Underlined all the programs as suggested.

I've been recently writing a list of programs that used Microsoft Agent technology that were released between the late-1990s to early-2010s, for those who want to be interested in old MSAgent content. Here's the list of known programs that are powered by Microsoft Agent: Microsoft Office 2000, XP and 2003 - The Office Assistant feature from used in older versions of Microsoft's Office suite software that were released in 1999, 2001 and 2003 respectively. Programs included Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Visio, Binder, PhotoDraw, FrontPage, Project & OneNote. The Office Assistants were discontinued and removed from Office 2007 and forward due to its unpopularity. Microsoft Agent Character Editor - the official character editor released by Microsoft in 1997 and last updated in 1998. MSAgent community member Konnor88 later made a custom version of the program called the Frontier Agent Character Editor. Lego Creator: Harry Potter - A 2001 PC video game that served as the third installment of the Lego Creator series of games and based on the Harry Potter series, making it the only commercial PC game to use Microsoft Agent technology. BonziBuddy - a desktop virtual assistant developed by Bonzi Software that was released in 1999 and discontinued in 2004 after two separate lawsuits that resulted in the company's closure, and many antivirus companies labeled the software as both spyware and adware. MaxAlert - a desktop virtual assistant developed by Bonzi Software which was a redesign of sorts to the company's InternetAlert software that was released in 2003 and discontinued in 2004. This software is unfortunately Lost Media. Vox Proxy - a shareware addon for Microsoft Office PowerPoint that allowed Microsoft Agent characters to be used in PowerPoint presentations. powerActor 2000 - another shareware addon for Microsoft Office PowerPoint that allowed Microsoft Agent characters to be used in PowerPoint presentations. Ace Buddy - a shareware text reader program developed by Zero2000 Software. Cyberbuddy - a multi-purpose instant messaging software that utilizes Microsoft Agent. MSAgent Play Functions - A demonstration software by Viper-One for Microsoft's official characters, those being Peedy, Merlin, Genie & Robby. WebSpeak - a shareware program developed by ShadiSoft that allows you to make your Web pages talk using Microsoft Agent characters. Aveo Attune - A PC tune-up software bundled with some Dell Application CD-ROMs, the Gravis Xperience 4.4 drivers CD-ROM, CorelDRAW 10, The MP3.com Music and Technology Tour CD and a obscure PC game called Forbidden Forest 3. The software was known for being spyware, resulting in it fading into obscurity. Microsoft Agent Properties Viewer (MAPV) - a small and easy to use freeware program developed by Abhisoft Technologies that allows you to view detailed information & status about MS Agent 2.0, Characters, Installed TTS engines. Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper (MASH) - a utility software developed by Bellcraft Technologies that allowed for users to record and playback presentations made with Microsoft Agent. MASH originally costed $25 USD before being declared freeware. DeskBot - a freeware program developed by Bellcraft Technologies that was a multi-featured Clipboard Reader, Text Reader, Time Announcer, Desktop Application for Microsoft Windows featuring Microsoft Agent Animated, Talking Characters. CharPackage - a freeware program developed by Bellcraft Technologies that allowed users to put MSAgent characters into Self-extracting installer files. Microsoft Agent Powertoy - an ActiveX control developed by Costas Andriotis that required Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher. Microsoft Music Scripting Helper (MUSH) - a freeware program developed by Pepedog that makes Microsoft Agent characters sing. Microsoft Agent Scripting Software (MASS) - a shareware program developed by Abhisoft Technologies that allows you to make animations with one of your characters. Agent Character Manager - a freeware program developed by Mnerea-Darius AKA MnD Software. Double Agent - an open-source alternative to Microsoft Agent that allows Agent applications to work on Windows 7. It's available for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. PopAgent - A shareware email notification utility for Windows 95, 98 & NT 4.0. Moony ISDN Call Monitor - a shareware caller ID program developed by Emtec that has an answering machine, and built-in send and receive functionality for faxes. Ahsha Math 1.5 - an edutainmemt animated math tutor for kids developed by Ahsha in 2002 that uses Microsoft Agent characters. IBM ViaVoice Pro Millenium Edition - a speech recognition software product developed by IBM in 1999. MSAgent Decompiler - a utility developed by Lebeau Software that will allow you to extract Microsoft Agent characters (ACS) files. AnswerPad - an Artificial Intelligence Interface program made by David Whalley that was hosted on the DesktopMates website in the 2000s. HP Tour Guide - a desktop companion software that came with HP Pavilion PCs pre-installed with Windows ME between 2000-2001 and Windows XP between circa 2001-2003. TimeAgent - a Freeware clock program developed by Fred Just Soft in 1999. Web Scrapbook - a webpage designer software originally developed by WebPrecinct in 1999 and later by AgentTaskForceUK. AgentTaskForceUK's Microsoft Agent software - a series of software titles released between 2000 and 2002 by a small British company called AgentTaskForceUK, these titles were WeatherAgent, NewsAgent, SportsAgent, ShoppingAgent, TraderAgent, GamesAgent, MovieAgent, BookAgent, AstroAgent & TravelAgent. Each taking a grasp at specific topics of online interest, and each with a unique MSAgent character. Unfortunately, all these software titles and their unique characters are now considered Lost Media, with only three of the nine characters found. the other two programs they made were AgentChatter & NetMessenger. Both software offerings from the same company are also lost media as well. Agent View - a Microsoft Agent Character Viewer developed by James Jenkins. Agent Clipboard Editor - a utility developed by Lebeau Software that uses Microsoft Agent and Text-to-Speech technologies to read the Windows Clipboard to you whenever it changes. Cliptalk - an HTML application designed for Internet Explorer developed by Rob Lindman. DJamp - a freeware plugin for Nullsoft's Winamp developed by Don Johnson from Working Technology that utilizes Microsoft Agent and Text-to-Speech to provide and animated talking DJ. FreeVoice - a Text-to-Speech and Voice Control software developed by Rohitab Batra. Karen's Power Toy - a program developed by Karen Kenworthy that uses Microsoft Agent technology to create a kid's toy. Language Reader - a freeware text reader developed by Authorsoft. Talking Translator Pro - a shareware program developed by Abhisoft Technologies that allows you to make animations with one of your characters for translating text from foreign languages. This is just my comprehensive list of confirmed software that uses Microsoft Agent technology, developed in 1997 and discontinued in 2009 with the release of Windows 7. If you know of any other programs powered by Microsoft Agent technology that I've missed, let me know about it in this thread.

Now for someone who can try to make an iceberg for lost Windows software made in the 1990s til the early-2010s. One has to find more to fill in the iceberg to begin with.

AgentTaskForce UK - a software suite that was developed in the early 2000s that utilized Microsoft Agent technology. Their specialty was that they were centered around different topics like video games, movies or the weather. This company made a program called WebScrapbook that was able to design websites and appeared to have connections to another British company WebPrecint. This small British company was founded in the year 2000 but went defunct three years later in 2003. They had financial issues in 2002, and their software would slip into obscurity. As of today, only three of the Microsoft Agent characters have been recovered, and the other five characters are nowhere to be found. Unless someone who is British have that CD-ROM that costs £9.75 at the time, it is unlikely that the remaining characters will ever resurface.

LIST OF SOFTWARE THAT SUPPORTS WINDOWS 3.1/WfW In this forum thread, you will find a list of software that supports Windows 3.1/WfW. A link to a download source will be provided for freeware, shareware and open source software. For commercial software, you will need to search for sites such as Amazon or eBay for older versions of software that supports Windows 3.1/WfW. NOTE: Please DO NOT post links to illegal download sources for commercial software as MSFN will not tolerate software piracy. *** K E Y L E G E N D *** LAST - Last version of software to support Windows 3.1 ONGD - Ongoing development FREE - Freeware/Open Source SHAR - Shareware (free trial of software); while certain free trials of software will expire, otherwise will either not expire or have reduce functionality $$$$ - Commercial software that must be purchased ² - Requires Win32s or WinG ???? - Unknown If you can find any, please post any details of current or the last version of software and utilities that work under Windows 3.1/WfW. 1. If it is the LAST or ONGD. 2. If the software is FREE, SHAR, or $$$$. If $$$$, no link will be provided. 3. A URL link for where the FREE or SHAR version of the software can be downloaded or purchased ($$$$). If you're trying to find the FREE or SHAR version of the software, but you're unable to find the link, let me know to see how this can be resolved. 4. If the software requires ², place it after the name of the software. 5. If necessary, the date of when the software was released in yyyy-mm-dd format. I wanted to write a list for the latest versions of software that runs on Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups, as I seen no one write one down. If you have found some software that supports Windows 3.1/WfW, please post them here.

For years many software have been available on Floppy disks, CD and DVD-ROMs or being freeware or open-source. However, not all software is easy to find, thanks to lack of record keeping and lack of availability. There are quite a couple of software now considered "Lost Media" A couple of examples that I can think of are as follows: ThinkDesktop Screenmates - a series of desktop toys released in the 2000s and discontinued in the 2010s. Bonzi Software products - software products that were released in 1993 until 2004. Many of its programs are now lost due to the installers requiring the Bonzi Software servers to download the files. Their product catalog included Voice E-Mail, InternetALERT, InternetBOOST, BonziBuddy and MaxALERT. Do you know of any other software that are now "Lost Media"? Feel free to provide comments on this thread.

If either of these two articles regarding DirectX 10 and Windows Vista Beta 2 Application tests are anything to go by, perhaps support for 16-bit audio and video codecs like the MotionPixels was dropped from Windows Vista during the Post-Reset development stages between the first eight development reset builds and Build 5212 (winmain) the earliest known available Windows Vista Beta 2 build.

We otherwise know about the shortcomings of Windows Vista when it released in 2006-2007 with compatibility issues with software and hardware, high system requirements and bloated features. Fortunately, it was able to somewhat recover with the release of its two service packs in 2008 and 2009 respectively. Among new changed to the UI and the addition to new programs, a couple of components were updated, including Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Movie Maker and the DirectX API which was version 10. But the introduction of DirectX 10 brought over a new change to the codec standards for Windows Media Player and the Windows operating system in general, and one by many that can sometimes be called controversial. That biggest change was the removal of support for the only two 16-bit Windows 3.1 video codecs, and those codecs were MVI1 and MVI2, also known as the MotionPixels codec format. In case you don't know about the MotionPixels codec (MVI1 and MVI2), it was developed by a company called Sirius Publishing back in 1996 with at least two versions released. The first being MVI1, which was only used with an old obscure 1996 PC puzzle game called Treasure Quest, which was wrapped in a MVI file format container extension (.MVI). The second and most common version is MVI2, which was wrapped in a common AVI file format container extension (.AVI), and this was used by an old home video format called MovieCD which was first released exclusively on Windows in 1996 and discontinued around 1999 and was also used in a couple of third-party PC games during the late-1990s. The audio on MovieCD was just a standard Windows WAVE sound file with mono sound at the bitrate of 88 Kilobits per second while the MVI2 MotionPixels video codec used on the format had inconsistent resolution between its 131 titles, as the resolution was different with each title with a resolution of either 320x236 or 320x224 (perhaps maybe even 320x240 and 320x220 were also used). The MovieCD format also came bundled with the MotionPixels Movie Player that was used for playback of the format. The catalogue of both TV and feature film programs available on the MovieCD format was mostly spawned from deals with New Line Home Video, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Alliance Video, Trimark Pictures, Rhino Entertainment and Central Park Media, offering genres such as action, comedy, anime, computer animation and music performances. However, the MovieCD format, the MotionPixels codec and even the MotionPixels Movie Player were plagued with so many issues and problems from the start when the MVI2 codec was first released, which prevented it from being compatible with any modern operating systems and computers. These include but not limited to: - The codec was designed with Windows 3.1 in mind, meaning that while it was compatible with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP, the codec had a ton of bugs that conflicted with other video player & video editing software installed on the user's computer, which can sometimes result in the program crashing. - The codec wasn't natively compatible with the DirectX audio and video codec APIs, as it used the outdated Windows 3.1 audio & video codec APIs. - The MotionPixels Movie Player that came with both the MovieCD home video format and a few third-party PC games had the executable names of AWARE31.EXE, AWARE95.EXE and AWARENT.EXE, and all of which had many software bugs that had never been fixed by Sirius Publishing and has also never been unofficially patched and fixed by software reverse-engineering enthusiasts either. - The MovieCD home video format was released in 1996, which was the same year that the DVD format was released and as such, in addition to competing with LaserDisc, VHS and Video CD in most cases, the format never had any chance to succeed in any form with only 131 titles released on the format. As a result of these bugs and problems caused by the MVI2 codec, and the fact that Sirius Publishing when under in the early-2000s, it's probably been made clear that Microsoft wanted to distance itself away from the MotionPixels codec, and as a result officially dropped support for the MVI2 codec from Windows and DirectX with the releases of Vista and version 10 respectively from 2006-2007 and onwards. As a result, when playing an AVI file encoded with the MVI2 codec, you just get audio and no video, and I even wonder if the aformentioned Treasure Quest game and MVI1 codec isn't compatible with Windows Vista and upward as well. Now that I've got the info regarding the MotionPixels codec out of the way, I've wanted to hear if anyone has ever tested both the MotionPixels codec, the Treasure Quest game and the MovieCD home video format on any Pre-Reset and Post-Reset builds of Windows Vista, mainly as I wanted to see and hear when the codec was last compatible with Windows before the release of the Windows Vista RTM. Hopefully I can get answers from anyone who has tried this.