Dear Technical Support,

18 months ago, I upgraded to Girlfriend 1.0 from DrinkingMates 4.2, which I had used for years without any trouble.

However, there are apparently conflicts between these two products and the only solution was to try and run Girlfriend 1.0 with the sound turned off. To make matters worse, Girlfriend 1.0 is incompatible with several other applications, such as LadsNightOut 3.1, Football 4.5, and Playboy 6.9.

Successive versions of Girlfriend proved no better

I tried a shareware program, Slapper 2.1, but it had many bugs and left a virus in my system, forcing me to shut down completely for several weeks.

Eventually, I tried to run Girlfriend 1.2 and Girlfriend 1.0 at the same time, only to discover that when these two systems detected each other they caused severe damage to my hardware.

I eventually upgraded to Fiancée 1.0, only to discover that this product soon had to be upgraded further to Wife 1.0. While Wife 1.0 tends to use up all my available resources, it does come bundled with CookingPlus and Cleanhouse2008.

Shortly after this upgrade, however, I found that Wife 1.0 could be very unstable and costly to run. Any mistakes I made were automatically stored in Wife 1.0's memory and could not be deleted. They then resurfaced months later when I had forgotten about them.

Wife 1.0 also has an automatic Diary, Explorer and E-mail filter, and can, without warning, launch TurboStrop and Multi-Whinge.

These latter products have no Help files, and I have to try to guess what the problem is.

Additional problems are that Wife 1.0 needs updating regularly, requiring ShoeShop Browser for new attachments and Hairstyle Express which needs to be reinstalled every other week.

Also, when Wife 1.0 attaches itself to my Saab 93 Convertible hard drive, it often crashes.

Wife 1.0 also comes with an irritating pop-up called MotherInLaw, which can't be turned off.

Recently I've been tempted to install Mistress 2007, but there could be problems. A friend of mine has alerted me to the fact that if Wife 1.0 detects Mistress 2007, it tends to delete all of your Money before uninstalling itself.

Help requested please!

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And the flip side...

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in the overall performance, particularly in the Flower and Jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 un-installed many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as: Football 5.0, Rugby 4.3 and Cricket 3.0.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs; it simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate

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Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.

Try entering the command: C:/ITHOUGHTYOULOVEDME to download Tears 6.2, which should automatically install Guilt 3.0. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1.

WARNING: Beer 6.1 is a very nasty program that will create Snoring Loudly.

CAUTION: Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law. This is not a supported application and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance I personally recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck,

Tech