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Thise site also offers the Sapi engine sdk/editor but the link to it is dead ;(

I don't think I'm going to buy this product now anyway...looking at the forum threads above it seems the developer has been entirely absent from his own support forum for too long. And there is a user who claims to have been unable to contact the owner for a very long time who still is not being answered.

I'm a developer myself and not answering support queries is the cardinal sin of developers!

Hi Datahoper,

Thanks for that and I will investigate. Then problem is that, at least in Vista, and I suspect XP too, you cannot simply edit either an MsAgent or the Speech engine directly....it appears you can only do so via other applications which take full use of Sapi 4 and 5 script or xml script parameters, which are beyond my technical ability. It looks to me like Hal Assist could have enabled access to these parameters but the scope in the Hal options panel is extremely limited.

I think you are right...setting the Speech engine to dication only and stopping the commands will fix it...but so far after a now far too long time diverted from work researching this, I cannot find that option and Microsoft's own pages on this reveal there is no application with an easy interface. There is an app called agent.exe but that doesn't even open vista agent files which have a different extension in the name.

I'll report back on your suggestions if I find them. Meanwhile I am really hoping Robert might see fit to answer this and my other thread. Perhaps he is on holiday?

Hi Robert,

I am trying to make Hal work using Vista's speech engine, which actually works very well with its native text to speech and voice recognition application. However I cannot SEPARATE out just the MSAgent/Speech Recognition Application from the core speech recognition engine, which results in your own app: HAL running at THE SAME TIME as the Vista application. Clearly this is not practical because HAL's instructions to do things are also heard by the Vista application and the two are clashing.

If you look here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163663.aspx

you will see an article describing how you can get your application to use Vista's native MSAgent just as a recogniser but NOT use the conflicting application native to Vista. It is too technical for me to understand but I feel sure you will understand it.

I am keen to purchase Hal Assist, but cannot do so until I solve this problem.

Your software notes say that I can simply use the native Vista MSagent/speech recognition engine with Hal, but when I opt in your options menu for this, then both Hal Assist AND the vista applications are both running. So if I chat with Hal the vista speech app thinks I am giving it instructions when I am not. I feel sure there is a way to use Hal Assist on top of the Vista engine without the Vista app also running. I hope this explains the problem clearly.

Could you please let me know the solution to this, whereupon I would be very keen to purchase Hal Assist. By the way I am successfully using Guile 3d's Nicole as a virtual assistant with Hal and despite your options showing her as not able to lip sync, she does it perfectly. This maybe indicates that in fact when running Hal in Vista it is not using Hal's engine but the Vista engine.

I would appreciate a really CLEAR explanation of what to do to resolve all the above problems. Thank you.

Thanks for the replies. It would have been helpful to also get a reply from the designer of the software, and perhaps he might take the trouble to assist.

In fact the complaints about Vista are grossly exaggerated all over the internet. I have the 64 bit version and it runs all my other apps perfectly well, and fast. Once you turn off the ridiculous User Account Control Vista behaves itself. I do not think the problem is Vista but Hal Assist's interaction with it. Since Hal Assist is advertised as being compatible with Vista, perhaps its author could investigate ways in which Vista's speech engine could be used without actually invoking the full speech-to-control app that runs alongside the speech engine itself. I believe there is a way to separate the two so that Hal is merely using the default MS Agent without using the whole speech recognition package in Vista.

The problem is that, as with nearly all Microsoft's explanations on its own software, this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms695905 ....is written in obfuscating and unclear language and reading it several times over reveals absolutely nothing!

There is a more useful article here which explains how developers can separate the core speech engine from Vista's speech recognition application, but I do not have the knowledge to implement it. That is my point....it is this software's author who perhaps should be investigating it, since it is he who claims Hal works ok with Vista, not me! http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163663.aspx

I look forward to a useful reply from the author. Thanks again to the other contributors.

I'm impressed with HAL's banter, but ....PLEASE make everything on your webpages clearer. Simple, plain, clear language has no substitute. Let me give an example:

I am trying this software and would REALLY like to buy it, but I am not going to purchase it until I am absolutely sure it works in Vista, and so far it does not. The reason it won't work is that the only voice recognition link it works with so far is Vista's own MSagent via Vista's own speech recognition engine. But that means that Vista Speech Recognition has to be on at all times otherwise HAL cannot hear me, just recognise my text.

But this cannot work because an instruction to HAL to open something, or type something also gives the same instruction to Vista to do the same thing. Furthermore chatting with HAL also makes Vista Speech Recognition think I am trying to communicate with it when I'm not. If I minimise or send the Vista SR to sleep then HAL doesn't hear me.

Furthermore, if I try to configure Hal Assistant to take dictation or click the Stop/Audio icons, which by the way are not labelled with any pop ups, the program crashes. Yet you say this program(6.1) is compatible  with Vista. Yet it eventually crashes every time for some reason, probably due to obvious conflicts with Vista's Speech Recognition.

Now, this is not necessarily ALL your fault because there should be a way to set up Vista so that it "hears" my commands and links to HAL but does not itself act on them: in other words getting Vista to recognise my speech and relay it to Hal Assist, but without interfering.

But your website is completely confusing about Vista, the two speech engines versions 4 and 5 and EXACTLY which one works and which one doesn't in exactly which circumstance. Your description of this issue is not clear at all. On the one hand you say the user needs a third party speech engine, but then you say he or she doesn't with Vista, but there is no definitive and positive statement about which your software definitely works with. Forgive me, but you are the one with the expertise and if you wish to sell me your otherwise fine product, surely it is in your interest to thoroughly investigate this and come up with a CRYSTAL CLEAR guide and a glitch free version so I don't have to do the donkey work myself...I simply want to purchase your product and use it but I have just spent ALL day and most of the night trying to trouble shoot why Hal Assist is crashing, and why it wont' pick up my voice unless Vista Speech Recognition is also on.

If it is the case that I have to purchase a third party engine then it is a bit of a waste when Vista is perfectly capable of running its own, free engine.

Other things that worry me are these:

1. The skins look very amateurish, take ages to load and are prone to crashing. They are also extremely flakey in operation and some menus simply don't work (particularly the speech set up parts). Surely you can improve these. Vista doesn't like them.

2. Your options menu describes the excellent "Nicole" 3d Virtual Assistant I have installed as not capable of lip sync, there being two crosses against her listing, yet in fact she lip-syncs perfectly with Hal...all I had to do was register her as an MS Agent. But that still doesn't solve the problem of crashing, and of clashing with Vista's recognition software.

3. If you are declaring software to be Vista compatible then that implies that you have thoroughly tested Hal Assist with it, but I am not convinced that is the case. Apologies if I am wrong.

Could you please answer the above questions, then point me to a quick and user-friendly solution to using Vista's perfectly good voice recognition engine, after which I will be very pleased to purchase.

By the way, I have account user control switched off and Vista is not objecting to any installation or running of any of the software involved....except when it crashes. Finally, I would prefer to stick with Vista's native speech engine because its voice "Anna" is much better than almost all the currently available speech agents.

Thank You for your kind attention.