Maintaining Security : Authorizing Administrative Actions, Restricting Access to Web Content

1. Authorizing Administrative Actions

The User Account Control is a very important part of Windows security and is responsible for all those times a dialog box pops up asking you to verify an action. Although the User Account Control is turned on by default, people sometimes find it so annoying that they turn it off. This action reduces your security and makes it much more difficult to execute actions while you’re logged on as a Standard user.

Turn On the User Account Control

1. Log on to Windows as an Administrator.

2. Click the Start button, choose Control Panel from the Start menu, and, in the Security section, click Check This Computer’s Security Status to display the Windows Security Center window.

3. If the User Account Control is shown as Off in the Other Security Settings section, click the Turn On Now button.

4. Click the Restart Now button to restart the computer.

5. Log on as a Standard user. When Windows requests your permission to take an action, in the User Account Control dialog box, click an Administrator account, enter the password for that account, and click OK.

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2. Restricting Access to Web Content

If you’re a parent, grandparent, guardian, or concerned relative or friend, a child’s access to a computer is a huge source of worry. Fortunately, you can restrict the type of content the child can access, and, if several children have access to your computer, you can make custom settings that are age-appropriate for each child’s account.

Set Up Parental Controls

1. If any of the individuals whose Web content you want to restrict are logged on, ask them to log off, or log them off yourself.

2. Click the Start button, choose Control Panel from the Start menu, and, in the User Accounts And Family Safety section, click Set Up Parental Controls For Any User. In the Parental Controls window that appears, click the account to which you want to apply the controls. If the individual doesn’t have an account, click Create A New User Account, create a Standard account for that person, and click Create Account.

3. In the User Controls window, select the On, Enforce Current Settings option to turn on the parental controls if they aren’t already turned on.

4. Specify whether you want Windows Vista to keep a record of Web sites visited, games played, programs run, and so on.

5. Click Windows Vista Web Filter to display the Web Restrictions window.

Control the Content

1. In the Web Restrictions window, select this option to enable specifying what content should be blocked.

2. If there are specific Web sites that you want to allow when they’re normally blocked, or that you want to block when they’re normally allowed, click this option, and add the relevant Web addresses to the Allowed Websites or Blocked Websites list in the Allow Blocked Webpages window. Click OK when you’ve finished.

3. Select a level of restrictions.

4. If you clicked the Custom option, select the check boxes for the type of content you want to block.

5. Select this check box if you don’t want to allow files to be downloaded from the Web.

6. Click OK, and then click OK in the User Controls window.

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