Hello Eric,
Thanks for your help.  I have Merlin popping up now and speaking.  However,
I have a problem where my code will not respond to an idlestart event.  Here
is a simple code sample that will not fire the subroutine when Merlin enters
an idle state.  Can you tell me what's wrong and why?

Thanks again for your help.

Doug vW

Public Class Form1
   Public Merlin As AgentObjects.IAgentCtlCharacter
   Public ctlAgent As New AgentObjects.Agent
   Public Const DATAPATH = "C:\Windows\Msagent\Chars\Merlin.acs"
   Private Sub frmMerlinForm_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
       ctlAgent.Connected = True
       ctlAgent.Characters.Load("Merlin", DATAPATH)
       Merlin = ctlAgent.Characters("Merlin")
       Merlin.Show()
       Merlin.Speak("Hello World")
   End Sub
   Private Sub Agent_IdleStart(ByVal Merlin As Object, ByVal e As
AxAgentObjects._AgentEvents_IdleStartEvent) Handles Agent.IdleStart
       Merlin.Speak("Good Bye!")
       End
   End Sub
   Private Sub btnQuit_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArgs) Handles btnQuit.Click
       End
   End Sub
End Class