The Microsoft text-to-speech voices are speech synthesizers provided for use with applications that use the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) or the Microsoft Speech Server Platform. There are client, server, and mobile versions of Microsoft text-to-speech voices. Client voices are shipped with Windows operating systems; server voices are available for download for use with server applications such. Oct 25, 2011 First install the Microsoft Speech Platform - Runtime 11.0; Click the file you want to download from the list below. Do one of the following: To start the installation immediately, click Open or Run this program from its current location.; To copy the download to your computer for installation at a later time, click Save or Save this program to disk.
Welcome to the Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime Release Notes. Refer to this file for information regarding known issues in the Microsoft Speech Platform.
About this document
Known issues
Copyright
© 2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
About this document
This document contains important information that you should know before you use the Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime. For additional information about this SDK and API sets, refer to the documentation available at Microsoft Speech Technologies.
Known issues
Uninstall previous versions
Issue: The Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime cannot be installed on computers that contain previous versions of the Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime.
Resolution: Prior to installing this product, uninstall any previous versions of the Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime.
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is required
Issue: The Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime requires Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5 Service Pack 1.
Resolution: Download the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 using this link and install it before you install the Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime.
After runtime installation, no speech recognition or text-to-speech languages are available
Issue: The speech recognition (SR) and text-to-speech (TTS) languages are not installed by default.
Resolution: To install speech recognition or text-to-speech languages, download the needed SR or TTS language installer from Speech Language Packs.
Copyright
Information in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, is subject to change without notice. Unless otherwise noted, the companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted in examples herein are fictitious. No association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.
© 2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
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Windows Narrator is one of several accessibility functions in Windows 10A Brief Guide to Windows 10 Accessibility ToolsA Brief Guide to Windows 10 Accessibility ToolsWhether you struggle with poor vision or want to explore speech control, Windows 10 offers plenty of accessibility tools to help you out. We show you where to find and how to use them.Read More. It serves as a simple screen reader for users with visual impairments.
But even if you don’t need it for that reason, you may still find Windows Narrator useful—and you may want to download and install voices other than the default. These are the basic text-to-speech (TTS) voices you can download for Windows Narrator.
How to Download More Voices for Windows Narrator
Windows 10 does include a few extra voices besides the default. To change them, go to Settings > Ease of Access > Narrator and under Personalize Narrator’s voice, choose a new voice from the dropdown box.
But what if you want entirely new voices? Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as it once was.
In prior versions of Windows, you could utilize a few voice-related downloads from Microsoft. Using them, you were able to dive into the Registry and make a few modifications to tell Windows to use the new voices.
We tested the once-popular methods for this, but none of them work properly anymore. Windows 10 keeps the Narrator voice information in a different location than earlier versions, rendering earlier methods unsuccessful.
While you may be able to dig around in the Registry to make this work, there’s no guarantee that future updates to Windows 10 won’t break it. And we don’t like recommending methods that require extensive Registry editing, as they’re more likely to introduce issues.
Thus, if you need more Windows Narrator voices, you’ll want to follow Microsoft’s recommendation to look at third-party tools. It points to a few other speech synthesizer software tools that support SAPI 5, including:
None of these tools are free, but if you need a high-quality screen reader or voice, they’re well worth paying for.
If you want to type with your voice instead, check out the best free speech-to-text tools for WindowsThe Best (Free) Speech-to-Text Software for WindowsThe Best (Free) Speech-to-Text Software for WindowsLooking for the best free Windows speech to text software? We compared Dragon Naturally Speaking with free alternatives from Google and Microsoft.Read More.