Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:38:00 -0000
From: Kelly Capps 
Subject: Girl-friend Software


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Software Compatibility

I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I've been having
some problems lately.  I've been running the same version of
DrinkingBuddies forever as my primary application, and all the GirlFriend
releases I've tried have always conflicted with it.
I hear that DrinkingBuddies 1.0 won't crash if GirlFriend is run in
background mode and the sound is turned off, but I'm embarrassed to say I
can't find the switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately and
it works okay. Girlfriend also seems to have a problem co-existing with my
Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some sort of timing
incompatibility.

I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but I thought I might
see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0.  After months of conflicts and
other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with GirlFriend
2.0.  He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run GirlFriend 2.0,
and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly.  He was
right.  As soon as I purged my cache, it uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 beta.  All the bugs were
supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus
anyway. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for while.

I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0.  This time I used a SCSI
probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay
for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system.
I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 4.0 still installed,
but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about that automatically
senses the presence of any other version of GirlFriend and communicates
with it in some way, which results in the immediate removal of both
versions.

The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some
problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure
language I can't understand, much less reprogram.  Frankly I think there is
too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired
functionality.  Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you
usually have to use gold-plated contacts, and I've never liked how
GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented."

A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to
GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of
GirlFriend.  He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if
you don't upgrade to Fiancée 1.0.  So he did, but soon after that, he had
to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has
taken up all his space, so he can't load anything else.

One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it
came bundled with FreeSexPlus. Well, it turns out the resource allocation
module of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly
the new Plug-Ins he wanted to try.  On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be
running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything.

Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw which has an
automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off.  I told him to try installing
Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first
uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the
uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway because of
insufficient resources.