Managing User Accounts, Passwords, and Logons : Controlling Your Children's Computer Access

In addition to technological measures in Windows 7 and other products, Microsoft also offers plenty of educational information for parents and kids to assist them in staying safe online.

The requirements for using Parental Controls are simple:

• You must have at least two user accounts set up on your computer—an administrator account for the parent and a standard account for the child. (More adults? More kids? Create a separate account for each person. Be sure that each child to whom you want to apply Parental Controls has a standard account because parental controls can't be applied to administrator accounts.)

• All administrator accounts on the computer should be protected by a password. (This isn't an absolute requirement, but without password protection, anyone can bypass or turn off Parental Controls. Note also that you need only one password-protected administrator account to manage Parental Controls. Other parents with standard accounts can use the administrator parent's credentials to run Parental Controls.)

• Your computer cannot be joined to a domain. On domain-joined computers, the Parental Controls feature is disabled, even when you're connected to your home network (or no network).
  

To begin using Parental Controls, open it in Control Panel. (It's in the User Accounts And Family Safety category.) After consenting to the User Account Control prompt (or entering an administrator password if you're logged on as a standard user), you'll see a window like the one shown in Figure 1.

To set restrictions for a child, click the child's account name and then click On, Enforce Current Settings, as shown in Figure 2.

1.1. Restricting Logon Hours

To control the times at which your child can use the computer, in the User Controls window (shown in Figure 2), click Time Limits. You can then specify, for each day of the week, which hours are allowed and which are blocked.

Thereafter, if your child tries to log on outside of the allowable times, a simple message appears: "Your account has time restrictions that prevent you from logging on at this time. Please try again later."

While a child with a restricted account is logged on, as the end of the allowable time approaches, a message pops up from the taskbar. If your child is still logged on when the blocked time arrives, he or she is unceremoniously logged off. Note, however, that this logoff is akin to switching users; open windows and running applications remain open, and no work is lost. When your child logs on again during an allowable time, everything is just as it was before being logged off.

1.2. Controlling Access to Games

To control which computer games your child is allowed to play, in the User Controls window (shown in Figure 2), click Games. From the window shown in Figure 3, click Set Game Ratings to specify the ratings codes for allowable games. You can also block games that contain specific types of objectionable content, even if the game's rating falls into the acceptable range. (Scroll down on the game ratings page to see these types of content, many of which you probably never imagined could appear in something called a "game.") In addition, you can review a list of installed games and explicitly block or allow certain titles.

Note:

Some games are not recognized by Windows as games. Therefore, they're not affected by settings you make in the game controls section of Parental Controls, nor do they appear in the list of games that you can explicitly block or allow. To control use of these games, use the general program-blocking capabilities of Parental Controls, as described in the following section.

By default, Parental Controls uses the game rating system established by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which has been widely adopted by publishers of games sold in the United States. To use a different rating system, return to the main Parental Controls page. In the left pane, click Game Rating Systems.

1.3. Blocking Programs

To control which programs your child is allowed to run, in the User Controls window (shown in Figure 2), click Allow And Block Specific Programs. The Application Restrictions window, shown in Figure 4, lists the executable files for programs installed on your computer, grouped by storage location (folder).

If you want to restrict your child's use to just a handful of programs, you can easily do so here. Conversely, if you want to give free rein except for a handful of programs (for example, you might want to prevent the use of your personal finance program so that your financial records aren't inadvertently compromised), click Check All—and then clear the check box by the programs you want to block.

Note:

Most of the basic accessory programs included with Windows—such as Notepad, Calculator, and Help And Support—are not included in the list of blockable programs, nor can you add them to the list. These programs are always allowed.

When your child attempts to run a blocked program, a dialog box appears.

Clicking OK dismisses the dialog box, whereas clicking the Ask An Administrator For Permission link requests the password of an administrator, and then gives you a chance to ignore the request by clicking Keep Blocking. If you click Always Allow, the program is added to the list of allowed programs, and your child won't be prompted again.

2. Using Other Controls to Keep Your Children Safe

Parental Controls in Windows Vista includes two controls that are not in Windows 7:

• Web filtering lets you specify lists of sites to allow and sites to block.

• Activity reporting monitors and reports computer activity, including when each child logged on and off, which programs she ran, which websites she visited, whom she has corresponded with via e-mail and instant messaging, and so on.

Although those controls are no longer part of Windows, Parental Controls is designed to incorporate additional controls that provide comparable functionality as well as other features. One such add-in is Windows Live Family Safety, which performs web filtering and creates activity reports that you can view from anywhere you have access to a web browser and an internet connection.

These additional controls can be provided by Microsoft or others. To install or use an add-in control, follow the instructions under Additional Controls, near the bottom of the main Parental Controls window shown earlier in Figure 1.