An Open Letter to Tech Support
Software and Girlfriend Upgrade Problems

Dear Folks at Microsoft;

I'm currently running the latest version of Microsoft GirlFriend and I've been having some problems lately. I've been running the same version of MS 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 utility to turn the sound off. I just run them separately, and it works okay. GirlFriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my MS football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey Gold, and Soccer programs, often trying to abort them with some sort of timing incompatibility errors.

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 connection with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. And I've never liked how GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented" regardless of how user friendly it makes it.

A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to GirlFriend Plus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriend Plus 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 until he upgrades his systems hardware.

One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it came bundled with FreeSexPlus. Well, as it turns out the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0, when bundled with MS Fulltime-Job, sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-Ins and Device-Drivers 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 MS Mother-In-Law, which has an automatic pop-up display, and sound feature he can't turn off.

I told him to try installing MS Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will automatically PKunzip MS Lawyer, scan all subdirectories and delete MS Money files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway — due to insufficient resources.

Any assistance you can offer will be greatly appreciated.