Festival looks interesting, and esp. Flite offers exactly the functionality I'm looking for; The problem is, that Flite according to the documentation only installs on WinCE (and not XP/2K).

I am currently using pre-recorded WAV-messages (like Albannach suggests), but i'd like to include variable info such as build number in my messages.

An application like TextSound offers a TTS.exe that accepts a text string on the command line and converts it to .WAV on-the-fly, but you have to pay $30 for a licence.

So, i've installed Jouke Visser's Speech-Synthesis-0.03 from CPAN. Though I found no ppm for windows, the make instalation went smooth on WinXP and this module will allow me to build a simple perl "SAY"-script that accepts an arbitrary text (including variables) and speaks it aloud. -- I have to find some more natural sounding voices than Mike, Sam & Mary tho'...

Thank's for the leads!
allan