Don't Have Peedy the Parrot?
He's an Oldie, but Goodie.

Microsoft Agent Technology® has been around for a while. The Agent Core Components are already installed on Windows 2000, ME, and XP. To check to see if Agent is installed correctly, or to download the Agent Core Components, visit Microsoft's Agent Home Page and click on the Try out Microsoft Agent Link.

Otherwise you may download the components from Microsoft. Run the MSAgent.exe setup program. After the core programs are installed, you may delete the MSAgent.exe setup program from your computer.

Download and install the Lernout & Hauspie® TruVoice Text-to-Speech engine - American English. Again, after you run the tv_enua.exe setup program and the engine is installed, you may remove the setup file from your computer.

If you are using Windows XP and the characters no longer speak, you may need to download SAPI 4.0 runtime support.

While you're there, you should also download the Speech Recognition Engine. This engine allows the character to respond to user commands.

We are using Peedy the Parrot character to read some of the nursery rhymes, poems and instructions here. If you don't see a character, and you have Agent installed correctly, you may just need to download and install Peedy. (Merlin is usually included in Windows 2000 and XP.)