How to Create a Custom Logon Sound that Speaks What You Like
Disclaimer: First of all, thanks to Vipul Taneja of Microsoft India for letting me know about this trick written by Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Thomas. He described it first and I am writing this tutorial based on it after testing on my PC with some modifications and screenshots.
As of most tutorial written by me, this tutorial also will not need any "extra" software.
What we are going to do?
We will make a VB script and place it in Windows 7 Startup folder. There after, every-time you log in, a voice will greet you after the startup sound (if enabled).
Step 1
Open Notepad. Copy paste the code written below:
Code:
Dim speaks, speech
speaks="Welcome, Abhishek"
Set speech=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice")
speech.Speak speaks
Now, change my name to yours inside the code. Infact, you can change and place any sentence within the quotation mark in the code. I have tested, it works fine upto 5 words. You can change the spelling, add space, punctuation etc to make it more realistic.
For example, I want to hear my name as "Oh-bhi-shake" ; so I will write there "Oh bhi shake".
Now, Save it as "Greetings.vbs" (without quotes) and as I always say, change the file from text to "all files". Save it to some location, you can remember; say Desktop.
Step 2
Now, we have to place it inside the Windows Startup folder. Click the Start-Button, choose "All Programs" and you will find it as a folder named Startup. Right Click it and choose Open or Explore.
Copy the VBS file you have created and paste there. You must be logged on as Admin. A security prompt will come, just accept it.
Step 3
Just restart the computer and you will hear the voice!
To disable it, just delete the file.
Now, we will go to further details.
Type of voices: In Windows 7 and Windows Vista, the default female voice is Anna. In Windows XP and 2000 its Sam.
There is way to change the settings of this default voice in Windows 7 and Vista too.
Click the Start Button, type "narrator" without quotes:
Narrator will open and begin to speak:
Just click the "Voice settings" and you will get this window:
There are third party voices available for installation, I have still not found any way to install other Microsoft voices by any trick.
Additional settings:
You can add some parameters too! For example:
Code:
with speech
Set .voice = .getvoices.item(0)
.Volume = 100
.Rate = 0
end with
Here, volume is defined in percentage. Other commands are:
.Pause = pause speaking
.resume = resume after pause
.Rate = speed of spoken words. The larger number, the faster pitch.
.Voice = If multiple exist on machine, say Sam and Anna are available, you can set any one.
.Volume = Already explained.
.WaitUntilDone = wait until done – Voice will wait still all the services loads, i.e. the system is completely ready.
Note
Companies, Schools, Universities can use their custom texts to greet users. For example, A Library PC can be set to say " Welcome to the central library of abc Institute"
My wife's birthday is tomorrow so I will modify her laptop later today to wish her a happy birthday when she boots her laptop. It will blow her mine. I already tried the file and it works great.
Computer type PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number Home Built OS Windows 7 HP 64bit, Windows 8 Pro w/Media Center 64bit CPU Phenom II X6 1100T Motherboard ASUS M5A99X EVO Memory Crucial Balistic 8gb DDR3-1866 CL9 Graphics Card MSI R6850 Cyclone IGD5 PE Sound Card On Board Monitor(s) Displays ASUS VE258Q 25" LED with DVI-HDMI-DisplayPort Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080
Keyboard Logitech K120 Mouse Logitech Marble Mouse USB, Logitech Precision Game Pad PSU Seasonic X650 80 Plus GOLD Modular Case Corsair 400R Cooling Antec Kuhler H2O 620, Two 120mm and four 140mm Hard Drives Two WD Cavier Black 2TB Sata III, WD My Book Essential 2TB USB 3.0 Internet Speed 15MB Antivirus Norton IS 2012, Malwarebytes Pro Browser IE-10, FF-19 Other Info APC UPS ES 750, Netgear WNR3500L Gigabit & Wireless N Router with SamKnows Test Program, Motorola SB6120 Gigabit Cable Modem. Brother HL-2170W Laser Printer, Epson V300 Scanner
To test the file before restarting you can just double-click the greetings.vbs file and tweak it untill 100% satisfied. This will save time in unnecessary restarts
System Manufacturer/Model Number mickey megabyte 1234 OS ultimate 64 sp1 CPU i5 2500K 3.3@4.2GHz Motherboard MSI P67A-GD53 Memory 8 gigs GSkill Ripjaws 1600 Graphics Card amd hd6950 Sound Card creative x-fi gamer Monitor(s) Displays samsung 24" Screen Resolution 1920x1080
Keyboard saitek eclipse ii Mouse logitech g3 PSU antec 550 Case antec three hundred Cooling i'm a cooling fan Hard Drives ocz vertex 2e 60 gig, samsung f3 1tb, buffalo 2tb ext Internet Speed about 4 Mbps Other Info i love win7
System Manufacturer/Model Number Built it myself OS Windows 7 64 & Ubuntu 64 CPU Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.40GHz Motherboard Asus Memory 8g Graphics Card Nvidia 9600 GT & 9800 GT Sound Card Turtle Beach 5.1 Monitor(s) Displays Three 19" Dell's & one 46" Samsung 750
@Johnny: Try to play a little with the PITCH settings. It's a computer generated voice that is based on an old Engine from AT&T Labs (IIRC) just like all those Answering machines etc. You will always hear that it's mechanical.
Just remember..if it doesn't sound right you could always change the spelling (like double the vowels or insert an h to stretch a vowel....correct spelling is not an issue here
For XP there were additional voices available...Mary and Mike. I wonder if one could use them in Windows 7 as well
HERE you can try out 10 different voices which don't sound so robotic anymore
Even better: HERE you can try out in different languages/Accents very funny
-DG
Last edited by SledgeDG; 05 Oct 2010 at 08:48 AM..
Reason: Added links
System Manufacturer/Model Number HP m8000n OS Windows 7 Ultimate x86 CPU DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2600 MHz 5200+ Motherboard Asus M2N68-LA (Narra) Memory Samsung 2GB DDR2 Graphics Card Onboard NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 Sound Card Onboard nVIDIA nForce 6100-430 (MCP61P) Monitor(s) Displays Westinghouse 19" LED Screen Resolution 1280x1024
Keyboard Logitech Classic KB 200 Mouse Standard HP opticle USB mouse PSU Stock (HP) Case Stock (HP) Cooling Stock Hard Drives SATA II Seagate Barracuda 500GB
USB II WD Elements 500GB
USB II WD My Book 1TB
USB II WD My Book 2TB
Computer type PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number Compaq sr5410f case OS Windows 7 Pro 64 SP1 CPU AMD X2 4450E @ 2.3 ghz Motherboard Biostar MCP6P M2+ Memory 4.0 g Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT , 512mb Sound Card onboard Monitor(s) Displays auria eq2367 Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080
Keyboard logitech wave cordless Mouse logitech LX8 cordless laser mouse PSU 250 watts Case Compaq Cooling couple fans Hard Drives 1 tb Hitachi HDT721010SLA scsi, 500 gb external Internet Speed comcast hi speed 19 dn 8 up Antivirus Microsoft Security Essentials Browser IE10 Other Info Laptop specs: HP g7-1365dx /
CPU: AMD A6-3420M APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics /
RAM: Crucial 8Gb (2x4Gb) /
SSD: Crucial M4-CT128M4SSD2 ATA Device/ FW 000F /
GFX: AMD Radeon HD 6520G /
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 7601 Multiprocessor Free Service Pack 1
Can this be converted to Wav and set in sounds as logon sound in Personalize??
Certain software like TextAloud can save to mp3 or wmp..no idea tho if the trial version can do that too (but if it can...Winamp can convert practically everything to WAV)
If you have a record software you could try and type your text HERE , pick the voice you like and record the result through your soundcard
-DG
System Manufacturer/Model Number HP m8000n OS Windows 7 Ultimate x86 CPU DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2600 MHz 5200+ Motherboard Asus M2N68-LA (Narra) Memory Samsung 2GB DDR2 Graphics Card Onboard NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 Sound Card Onboard nVIDIA nForce 6100-430 (MCP61P) Monitor(s) Displays Westinghouse 19" LED Screen Resolution 1280x1024
Keyboard Logitech Classic KB 200 Mouse Standard HP opticle USB mouse PSU Stock (HP) Case Stock (HP) Cooling Stock Hard Drives SATA II Seagate Barracuda 500GB
USB II WD Elements 500GB
USB II WD My Book 1TB
USB II WD My Book 2TB
@JohnnyScience: Thank you. Additional packages are available for purchase from third party. I am not sure if there is any way to add more voices for free. Also try the way Sledge DG said.
System Manufacturer/Model Number COMPAQ Presario Laptop OS Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, Mac OS X 10.6 CPU Intel Pentium Dual Core @2.0GHz Motherboard Compaq Generic Memory 12GB Graphics Card NVIDIA Graphics For Mobile 512MB VRAM Sound Card IDT High definition Audio Monitor(s) Displays Laptop LCD Display Screen Resolution 1280*800 Bright View Widescreen
Keyboard Generic Laptop Keyboard Mouse Touch Pad Cooling Direct ; generic fan Hard Drives 500 GB Primary Master@7200rpm + 1 TB External HDD Internet Speed 3.1 Mbps wireless Broadband Other Info Generic Dock
Note
Quote: Originally Posted by gaz 
User Account Picture on Logon Screen size "Windows 7 Ultimate x64" 
