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Odds and Ends: Apple credit bills not payable through Safari?; Virtual PC looping behavior after Windows security updates

Odds and Ends: Apple credit bills not payable through Safari?; Virtual PC looping behavior after Windows security updates

CNET staff
2 min read

Greg Koelpien reports that he is suddenly unable to make payments on his Apple Credit Account, apparently because of a change in MBNA's (the financial institution backing Apple's loans) transaction engine.

"This morning I went to make an online payment to my Apple Credit Account, which is serviced by MBNA and powered by CheckFree. Imagine my surprise when it wouldn't allow me to do so through Safari. It gave me the following message:

'Browser Upgrade Required: We have detected that your browser is an older version of Netscape. You must upgrade to Netscape Navigator 6.2 or later.

'You can download a newer version browser by clicking the following links:...'

"Internet Explorer let me make the payment. How ironic that I cannot make a payment to Apple utilizing its own browser."

In many cases using a tool like Safari Debugger to quickly enable Safari's debug menu, then changing the user agent ID setting to Internet Explorer or Netscape will resolve issues similar to Mr. Koelpien's. We're awaiting his reply regarding whether changing the setting results in ability to access the MBNA site.

UPDATE: Koelpien responds "Using Debugger and imitating another browser (Mac MSIE 5.2.2) did indeed allow me to access my account where before I couldn't with Safari. I chose not to make a second payment with my 'disguised' Safari, since I already made one today with MSIE, so I can't say with 100% certainty that it would allow the payment to be completed, but there's no reason why it shouldn't, since I am now a recognized browser."

Virtual PC looping behavior after Windows security updates MacFixIt reader Suzy Smith reports a problem with a typical Windows restart loop occurring after applying the latest Windows 2000 security updates in Virtual PC.

In Smith's case, the issue was resolved by choosing to "shut down" the emulated PC after the updates rather than directly "restarting."

"I'm using VPC 6.1.1 with Win2K. I just installed the latest round of security patches using Windows Update. Once the 5 security patches were downloaded and installed, a dialog box asks to Restart or Cancel. If you pick Restart, your machine may go into a loop--(black startup screen, white Windows screen, blue screen that disappears too quickly to see the message).

"If you Cancel (instead of Restart), and then use Windows Shutdown, everything seems to be OK when opening the VPC container again (no looping).

"To get back to a working version of your VPC container, pick Shutdown from VPC's Control Menu and select Turn off PC. Then, either double-clicking on the container or opening it from the File Menu brings up your PC container and it appears to work fine. I double-checked at the Windows Update site, just to make sure the patches had been applied, and got the message that there were no critical updates to install."

If you are having a similar issue, please drop us a line at late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Resources

  • Safari Debugger
  • late-breakers@macfixit.com
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