Last year a friend of mine upgraded GirlFriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other applications. He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also is spawning Child-Processes which are further consuming valuable resources. No mention of this particular phenomena was included in the product brochure or the documentation, though other users have informed him that this is to be expected due to the nature of the application. Not only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is always launched at system initialization where it can monitor all other system activity. He's finding that some applications such as PokerNight 10.3, BeerBash 2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run in the system at all, crashing the system when selected (even though they always worked fine before). At installation, Wife 1.0 provides no option as to the installation of undesired Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw 55.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release. Also, system performance seems to diminish with each passing day. The features he'd like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0 include: - A"Don't remind me again" button - Minimize button - An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 to be installed with the option to uninstall at anytime without the loss of cache and other system resources. - An option to run the network driver in promiscuous mode which would allow the systems hardware probe feature to be much more useful. I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by sticking with Girlfriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found many problems. Apparently you cannot install Girlfriend 2.0 on top of Girlfriend 1.0. You must uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 first. Other users say this is long standing bug which I should have been aware of. Apparently the versions of Girlfriend have conflicts over shared use of the I/O port. You think they would have fixed such a stupid bug by now. To make matters worse, The uninstall program for Girlfriend 1.0 doesn't work very well leaving undesirable traces of the application in the system. Another thing that sucks -- all versions of Girlfriend continually pop-up little annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0 BUG WARNING 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. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources. BUG WORK-AROUNDS To avoid the above bug, try installing Mistress 1.1 on a different system and never run any file transfer applications such as LapLink 6.0. Also, beware of similar shareware applications that have been known to carry viruses that may affect Wife 1.0. Another solution would be to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet provider under an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses which can accidentally be downloaded from the UseNet. ------------------------ From: Squid Owens To: "'wetleather@micapeak.com'" , Subject: Humor: Responce to Wife1.0 post Dear John - I was disturbed to here of the troubles you and your friend are having with your chosen software packages (Wife1.0, Girlfriend 3.x 4.x, and Mistress 1.x). However I would like to point out that all of your strife could have been avoided if you had simply done more product research and chosen MS Wife 1.0 instead of those inferior products produced by companies like Abudabe, GnatScrape, and Grovell. My Special Wife 1.0 is unlike any other software package out there. MS Wife 1.0 grows with you and actually contributes to your resource pool. MS Wife 1.0 has a complex AI which allows it to understand your input even if it isn't exactly rational or logical. MS Wife 1.0 is not a resource hog, and in fact understands that it takes cooperation of Software and Hardware to bring up a well writen child function quickly and efficiently. MS Wife 1.0 understands that your hardware has not existed in a vacuum since it's creation and has had many applications installed and removed in your life time. MS Wife does not begrudge previous companion software installs as long as they have been completely removed. MS Wife actually encourages the installation of entertainment packages like Dirt Bike CR.125 and RaceBike SV.650. Indeed MS Wife 1.0 actually enjoys PubNite7.0. MS Wife 1.0 is also highly pleased when Home Improvement or Mechanical Apptitude expansion packs are installed to the primary OS. And as far as I/O ports go, MS Wife 1.0 can actually improve performance and compatability to unheard of levels. Truely astonishing in this aspect as a matter of fact. The in-law applet does exhist in MS Wife 1.0 and it can be a questionable 'feature' sometime, but the applette process may be temporarily suspended for periods of time without hindering system performance, and actually the applet can be fun once you learn to associate other applications with it (see dirt bike and race bike applications). However, as tacitly mentioned previously Wife 1.0 is not compatible with any other companionship or child productivity style software. I myself think of this a feature and not a bug, as it tends to keep financial (and emotional) support costs down. I would point out that if you really feel that you need multiple suites of companion software that you should avoid using ANY Wife type products as they are not likely to perform in the manner you might expect. Indeed, I would recommend sticking to Fist 5.0 until you can find the time to read the documentation for Girlfriend 3.0. Regards, Squido