Parental Controls in Windows Vista and 7

In the previous article we discussed how parental control software’s help protect your kids from harm’s way, offline and online. This article discusses in detail the several useful parental control features in Windows Vista and 7.

Set up limited user accounts

Microsoft made amends for ignoring parental control options in Windows XP and previous versions, by including a fully functional parental control suite in Windows Vista and 7.

Before starting out with parental control options, make sure you’re logged in as the administrator. Now create Standard User accounts, one for each family member or each child, from the Add or Remove User Accounts option in the Control Panel.

It is advisable to create limited or standard accounts for your children and not allow complete or administrator access as it will be difficult for you to restrict access to certain programs and secondly, it will increase your PCs vulnerability to online attacks. Malwares can cause unlimited damage through administrator accounts while their ability to cause evil is restricted in limited user accounts on account of partial access to the PC.

Configure parental controls in Vista and 7 user accounts

After the required user accounts have been setup, go to Control Panel à User Accounts and click Set up Parental Controls. You can set up parental controls for all user accounts or only some of them. After you have entered the administrator username and password if prompted, select the user account for which you would like to turn on the parental control settings.

Now select On, enforce current settings.

To regulate Web access of your child’s account, click on Windows Vista Web Filter under Windows Settings.

There are four options to choose from. You can block specific Web sites or content, allow only Web sites that are on the allow list, use the built-in filter to auto regulate Web site access based on the content rating or you can even block all file downloads while allowing limited or unrestricted Web access.

Choose the appropriate level of access for each family member as you deem fit.

Set time limits for PC use

Under Windows Settings click Time Limits.

The white blocks depict the time during which your child can use the computer, while the blue blocks indicate the restricted hours when you want Toby or Mary to concentrate on his or her studies or on some other activity. Once the limit expires your kid will be auto logged off if using the computer and will not be allowed access if not logged on already.

Set the time limits accordingly.

Wild games can be tamed

Feel your kid’s playing games inappropriate for his/her age and understanding? Now you have help at hand. Just click Games under Windows Settings.

You can regulate the games your child plays in two different ways.

Click Set game ratings to allow or disallow games with specific or no ratings. You can completely block games that do not have any ratings and can allow only games with specific ESRB ratings. You might want to block games that contain blood, gore or adult content.

You can even block games that have ratings associated with them but you consider the content inappropriate. Click Block or Allow specific games or click Always Block for games that you never want your kids to play.

View activity reports

To get daily reports of your child’s computer activities select On under Activity Reporting. You can then view detailed reports by clicking View activity reports and modify the user account access based on the information in these reports.

Summing up

While parental control software can be your child’s guardian angel, your freedom loving kids can also view it as unwanted interference in their privacy. So it’s best to first make them understand that such filters are there to protect them from harm and not to snoop around or ruin their PC experience.  Once they understand this, control might gradually transform to self-regulation.

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Vimlaksh G

vimlaksh@hotmail.com