GirlGriend Version 1.0



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 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the
GirlFriend releases I've tried have always conflicted with it.

I hear that DrinkingBuddies 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 a 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 Fiancee 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 1.0
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.

I suppose the moral of the story is: know your system's hardware,
it's software requirements and compatibilities and be real careful
about what software you install and when and how you upgrade.