"Say.exe" - A simple command line text to speech program for Windows

This is a useful tools that I'd like to share. The followings are written by Martin.



I remember back to the old days of my Commodore 64 . Way back in the early eighties, I had a command line program to be able to have the computer say what you type on the command line. I was very surprised that nothing like this is freely available on the net for windows. Microsoft provides both the "MS Agent" COM api as well as the SAPI api, but no easy way to utilize either.

This is a real simple program that simple uses the MS SAPI api. Simple run "Say.exe Hello world!" and have your computer say hello to the world.

Here is a link to a statically linked EXE: SayStatic.exe

Here is a link to a dyncamically linked EXE (MSVCRT.dll version 8 / Visual Studio 2008 (9) ): SayDynamic.exe

Here is a link to the source code.

Put it up on a publically accessible network share and use System Internal's psexec.exe (now owned by Microsoft) and have fun freaking folks out.

by martin

File sort order reversed or wrong in File Open or File Save dialog box

For those who face the same problem as I when using the file "open" or "save" dialog box, where the sort order of the files are always default in the undesirable order.

Here is the fix:

- Right click "My Computer", choose "Explore".
- Click on the C: drive in the left pane.
- Click on the "View", then choose "List".
- Right click anywhere in the right pane where the files get listed.
- Choose "Arrange Icons By".
- Pick "Name".
- Ensure files are sorted as desire. If not, repeat.
- Press and hold the CRTL key, then click on the "X" to close the explorer.

After that, you can change file sorting order in windows explorer without affecting the default saved in "open" or "save" dialog box.

The catch here is the "List" view and holding CTRL while closing the windows explorer. Only by doing so, you can save a default file sorting view.