Customer Complaint #1I'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 its sound is turned off. However, for the life of me I can't find
the switch that turns the sound off. So, I just run them separately, and they work just
fine. [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, I've never liked how the GirlFriend Series 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
often prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, even with new Plug-Ins. On top of that, Wife 1.0
came with MotherInLaw 1.0, although he did not ask for it. This has an automatic pop-up
feature he can't control, and it's impossible to modulate its sound.
I suggested that he
consider installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first
uninstalling any of the Wife series, Wife will delete all MSMoney files and crash the
system before uninstalling itself. With a purged cache, Mistress 1.0 will never install.
Customer Complaint #2Upgrading from Girlfriend to Wife -
Last year a friend of mine upgraded from Girlfriend 4.0 to Wife 1.0 and
found that it's a memory hog leaving few system resources for other
applications. He is also now noticing the Wife 1.0 is also spawning
Child-processes which are further consuming valuable resources. No
mention of this particular phenomenon was included in the product
documentation, though other users have informed me that this is to be
expected due to the nature of the application.
Not only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself
so that it is always launched at system initialization where it can
monitor all other system activity. Some applications such as PokerNite
10.3 , Bachelor Party 2.5, and Pubnite 7.0 are no longer able to run on
the system at all, causing the system to lockup when launched (even
though the apps worked fine before).
Wife 1.0 provides no installation options.
Thus, the installation of undesired plug-ins such as Mother-in-law 55.8
and the Brother-in-law Beta is unavoidable. Also, system performance
seems to diminish with each passing day.
Some features my friend would like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0:
- A "don't remind me again" button.
- Minimize button.
- Ability to delete the "headache" file
- An install feature that provides an option to uninstall 2.0 version without loss of other system resources.
- An option to run the network driver in "promiscuous mode"
allowing the the system's Hardware Probe feature to be much more
useful/effective.
I myself wish I had decided to avoid all of the
headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by sticking with Girlfriend 3.0 Even
here, however, I have found many problems. Apparently you cannot
install Girlfriend 4.0 on top of girlfriend 3.0. You must uninstall
Girlfriend 3.0 first, otherwise the two versions of Girlfriend will
have conflicts over shared use of the I/O port. Other users have told
me that this is a long-standing problem that I should have been aware
of. Guess that explains what happened to versions 1 and 2.
To make matters worse, the uninstall
program for Girlfriend 3.0 doesn't work very well, leaving undesirable
traces of the application in the system. Another identified problem is
that all versions of Girlfriend have annoying little messages about the
advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0!
VIRUS ALERT
All users should be aware that 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. Once that happens, Mistress
1.1 won't install and you will get an "insufficient resources" error
message. To avoid the aforementioned bug, try installing Mistress 1.1
on a different system and " never" run any file transfer
applications(such as Laplink) between the two systems.
FYI: Don't even think about a shared directory!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, I know it's quite a bit too read, but I thought it was great