[Bug 38776] ReadPlease 2003 (SAPI 4.0) won't load non-English Text to Speech Engine

[WineHQ Bugzilla]

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38776

Anastasius Focht  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                URL|                            |https://web.archive.org/web
                   |                            |/20190311202317/http://gros
                   |                            |sgang.com/tts/sapi_voices/s
                   |                            |etupreadplease2003.exe
                 CC|                            |[e-mail]
         Resolution|---                         |FIXED
            Summary|Readplease/SAPI 4.0 wont    |ReadPlease 2003 (SAPI 4.0)
                   |load non US Engels Voice    |won't load non-English Text
                   |                            |to Speech Engine
             Status|UNCONFIRMED                 |RESOLVED
           Keywords|                            |download

--- Comment #3 from Anastasius Focht  ---
Hello folks,

the original download is gone/abandoned:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131003203632/https://sites.google.com/a/reader...

I've found a website with lots of TTS/SAPI related downloads, including apps
for testing, custom voices etc. = goldmine.

http://grossgang.com/tts/

--- quote ---
Welcome to the official website of Jake Gross. This site has podcasts,
recordings, software, operating systems, and other things that I am involved
in.
--- quote ---

Very useful for reproducing many (old) Wine TTS bugs.

http://grossgang.com/tts/sapi_voices/

In this case:

http://grossgang.com/tts/sapi_voices/setupreadplease2003.exe
http://grossgang.com/tts/sapi_voices/lhttsenu.exe

I've created snapshots via Internet Archive just in case:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190311202317/http://grossgang.com/tts/sapi_voi...

https://web.archive.org/web/20200412195158/http://grossgang.com/tts/sapi_voi...
> From the other site:

http://htmlbible.com/MicrosoftSpeechComponents/TextToSpeechEngines/French/lh...

'ReadPlease 2003' bundles MS SAPI 4 and runs the sub-installer during install.

--- snip ---
$ tree --charset=ANSI .wine/drive_c/windows/speech/
.wine/drive_c/windows/speech/
|-- spchtel.dll
|-- speech.cnt
|-- speech.dll
|-- speech.hlp
|-- vcauto.tlb
|-- vcmd.exe
|-- vcmshl.dll
|-- Vdict.dll
|-- VText.dll
|-- vtxtauto.tlb
|-- WrapSAPI.dll
|-- Xcommand.dll
|-- Xlisten.dll
|-- XTel.Dll
`-- Xvoice.dll

0 directories, 15 files
--- snip ---

I've installed English and French engines and could select between both with
multiple voice actors each. French Speech synthesis works fine. Mr. Baguette
reads the text as expected. *KEKW*

I've tested with Wine 1.7.44 and the app crashes right away on startup without
showing any UI up to Wine 1.7.52. With Wine 1.7.55 the app starts and French
voice can be selected. I assume it's fixed somewhere in between these Wine
1.7.x releases. Maybe I do a bisect one day when I'm too bored.

$ sha1sum setupreadplease2003.exe 
f49ce55ed99e7448fce3bf57cd9d3c80751fb6cb  setupreadplease2003.exe

$ du -sh setupreadplease2003.exe 
11M    setupreadplease2003.exe

$ sha1sum lhtts*
c4ab3e808c786cb09103148891648556374e97ca  lhttsenu.exe
fe843fa9998b282fe5d5ea7a0f11c78478b46d54  lhttsfrf.exe

$ du -sh lhtts*
3.3M    lhttsenu.exe
2.3M    lhttsfrf.exe

$ wine --version
wine-5.6

Regards