Jokes: The Evolution of Social Software

Wife 1.0 Just Released

Dear Tech Support,

A long time ago I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of new space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure.

In addition, Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization, where it monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Drunken Boys Night 2.5 and Saturday Football 5.0 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected.

I cannot seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run some of my other favorite applications. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall does not work on this program.

Can you please help me !!!???

Thanks,
A TROUBLED USER

Dear TROUBLED USER,

This is a very common problem, but is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a Utilities & Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an Operating System and designed by its creator to run everything.

It is unlikely you would be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Girlfriend 7.0 to emulate Wife 1.0 so nothing is gained. It is impossible to uninstall, delete, or purge the program files from the system once installed. You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is not designed to do this.

Some have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than the original system. Look in your manual under "Warnings- Alimony/Child support". We recommend you keep Wife 1.0.

We suggest installing background application program C:\YES DEAR to alleviate software augmentation. We also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Partnership Faults (GPFs). You must assume all responsibility for faults and problems that might occur, regardless of their cause. The best course of action will be to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE. In any case avoid excessive use of C:\YES DEAR because ultimately you may have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the operating system will return to normal. The system will run smoothly as long as you take the blame for all the GPFs.

Wife 1.0 is a program, but very high-maintenance. Consider buying additional software to improve the performance of Wife 1.0. We recommend Flowers 3.1 and Diamonds 2K. Do not, under any circumstances install Secretary with Short Skirt 3.3. This is not a supported application for Wife 1.0 and is likely to cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Tech Support

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 initialisation 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. Some features he'd like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0.

A "Don't remind me again" button
Minimize button
An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 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 a 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.

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 1.1 via a Usenet provider under an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses which can accidently be downloaded from the Usenet.

Seems like the only solution to Wife 1.0 is to install Divorce 1.0. This is a radical package however it will erradicate Wife 1.0... at least partcially. And you usually get most of your resources back (or at least.

Divorce 1.0's installation process will remove Wife 1.0, preparing you to install any of GirlFriend 2.0, Mistress 1.2 (new version!) or Wife 2.0 (if you want). Unfortunately if Wife 1.0 (or any of the other products mentioned) have spawned child processes then things get more complex. Usually the child processes take up less processing power and they surface from time to time, but you're often glad to see them. Unfortunately the child processes tend to remind you of the package from whence they came and sometimes you have to interact with Wife 1.0 or GirlFriend 1.0, but usually these things can be dismissed fairly easily.

As Divorce 1.0 needs to uninstall Wife 1.0 it carries all the caveats that uninstalling Wife 1.0 has. Usually you are left with about 1/2 of the resources you started with before installing Wife 1.0.

If you have already upgraded to Wife 2.0 then you'll need to get Divorce 2.0.

Andrew DeFaria <Andrew@DeFaria.com>