Girlfriend 2.0
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 runs an emulation program and the sound is turned off. Unfortunately, the DrinkingBuddies emulation for GirlFriend never seems to work, and 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.
I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. But 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 booted up it gave me a virus anyway. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for awhile.
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 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 uninstalls itself then shuts the system down. 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. 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 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.
I hear the next big thing is thin clients which are reminiscent of the old dumb terminals. They are supposed to offer better output, they're less expensive, and best of all, you use them with your TV.
