May 14, 2004 08:50
GirlFriend V 1.0:
Discretion advised when upgrading
Last year a friend of mine upgraded GirlFriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other applications. He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also is spawning Child-Processes which are further consuming valuable resources. No mention of this particular phenomena was included in the product brochure or the documentation, though other users have informed him that this is to be expected due to the nature of the application. Not only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is always launched at system initialization where it can monitor all other system activity. He's finding that some applications such as PokerNight 10.3, BeerBash 2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run in the system at all, crashing the system when selected (even though they always worked fine before). At installation, Wife 1.0 provides no option as to the installation of undesired Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw 55.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release. Also, system performance seems to diminish with each passing day.
Some features he'd like to see in the upcoming wife 2.0.
A "Don't remind me again" button
Minimize button.
An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 be installed with the option to uninstall at anytime without the loss of cache and other system resources.
An option to run the network driver in promiscuous mode which would allow the systems hardware probe feature to be much more useful.
I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by sticking with Girlfriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found many problems. Apparently you cannot install Girlfriend 2.0 on top of Girlfriend 1.0. You must uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 first. Other users say this is a long standing bug which I should have been aware of. Apparently the versions of Girlfriend have conflicts over shared use of the I/O port. You think they would have fixed such a stupid bug by now. To make matters worse, The uninstall program for Girlfriend 1.0 doesn't work very well leaving undesirable traces of the application in the system.
Another thing that sucks -- all versions of Girlfriend continually popup little annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0
***** BUG WARNING ********
Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources.
*** BUG WORK-AROUNDS ***************
To avoid the above bug, try installing Mistress 1.1 on a different system and never run any file transfer applications such as Laplink 6.0. Also, beware of similar shareware applications that have been known to carry viruses that may affect Wife 1.0.
Another solution would be to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet provider under an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses which can accidently be downloaded from the UseNet.
The only thing I would add to this is that if you search carefully, you can find one of the extremely rare Mistress 1.1a versions, which knows that Wife applications are running with priority, and which runs under cloaking, with no interest or attempts to upgrade itself to a Wife application.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BoyFriend V 5.0:
Dear Tech Support:
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed that the new program began making unexpected changes to the accounting modules, limiting access to flower and jewelry applications that had operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.
In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.9, but installed undesirable programs, such as NFL 5.0 and NBA 3.0. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.
I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.
Desperate
Dear Desperate:
Keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an entertainment package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Try to enter the command : C:/ I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME and install Tears 6.2. Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications: Guilty 3.0 and Flowers 7.0. But remember, overuse can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program. DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 or reinstall another Boyfriend program.
These are not supported applications and will crash Husband 1.0. In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. Consider buying additional software to improve performance. I personally recommend HotFood 3.0 and Lingerie 5.3. Also, running Nagging 5.3 too often can sometimes cause Husband 1.0 to secretly install Mistress 1.0, which would then require you to run Private Investigator 7.5 utility and possibly even Attorney 9.0, which could lead to a system wide failure and the need to reboot Husband 1.0!
--Tech Support