Microsoft Agent was a technology developed by Microsoft which employed animated characters, text-to-speech engines, and speech recognition software to enhance interaction with computer users. Thus it was an example of an embodied agent. It came preinstalled as part of Windows 98 through Windows Vista. It was not included with Windows 7 but can be downloaded from Microsoft. It was completely discontinued in Windows 8. Microsoft Agent functionality was exposed as an ActiveX control that can be used by web pages.