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 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.