With the advent of Windows Vista, a new feature called Windows Parental control was introduced. This feature allows parents to monitor their children’s PC usage. It allows them to decide what kind of access, whether it’s a program, game or website, they want their child to have.
This guide will cover all aspects of parental controls on Windows and how to set it up. It’s almost identical to Windows Vista and Windows 7, except for one or two changes that we’ll talk about.
availability
This feature is available in most versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. In Windows Vista, it is available on Home basic, Home premium and Ultimate editions. You won’t find it on the Business edition.
In Windows 7, it is available in Windows 7 Starter, Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate editions.
How to enable parental controls
Click on the “Start” button. Type parental controls in the search box and press enter.
Now click on your child’s account to which you want to apply parental controls. You can create a new user account if there is only one user account on your computer. (Here I clicked on the “Kids” account name to show all the features).
In your child’s account, select the “Enable, enforce current settings” option to enable parental controls. Now you can see there are many different options. There is an option to limit time, games, and allow or block specific programs.
Screenshot for Windows 7. In Windows Vista you will find another option called Windows Vista Web Filter. We will talk about it later in this guide.
Limited time
You can decide how long your child can use the computer through the “Time Limit” option. Look at the screenshot. Here each box represents one hour of the day. Just hold down the left mouse button and drag on the hour you want to block. Your action makes the dragged area blue.
Blue indicates times when your child will not be allowed to log in. White indicates, he is only allowed to log in during that period.
If your child tries to log in to the computer within the time limit, your child will receive a message as shown in the screenshot below.
Game control
Click the Games link on the parent control main page. You will be asked to choose an option if your child plays the game or not. Select “Yes” if he does. Now click “Set Game Rating” to decide the right games for him to play.
You can decide what games your child can play based on the game rating. If you select Everyone over 10 (third option from the top), each option before it will be selected with it. You can prevent your child from playing violent and mature games.
There is an option to block the game according to the type of content it contains. Scroll down to the current page and you will get many checkboxes. Check out the ones that you think are right for your child.
Now go back to the Game Control settings page again and click “Block or allow specific games”. Here you can block or allow games that come with Windows by default.
Allow or block specific programs
On the main settings panel, there is a link to “allow or block specific programs”. Click on it to decide what programs your child can access.
Select the option “Children(Account Name) can only use the programs I authorize”. Windows will scan all the programs present on your computer and display it in the same window. Now check the box next to the programs that you want to allow your child. You can use “Check all” to check them all at once.
If any program is not listed then you can select it with the help of “Browse” button. After selecting the program click OK.
Web Filtering (Available in Vista)
This option is only available in Windows Vista although you can get Windows Live Family Safety for download in Windows 7. We’ll save that option for a later post.
For now, use the default option in Vista. If you are a Vista user, to enable the web filter, click the “Windows Vista Web Filter” link on the parental controls window.
On the next screen, select the “Block some websites or content” option to manually add the websites you choose to allow or block. Also, check the box next to “Allow only whitelisted sites”. Now you have to add the sites manually. Click “Edit Allow and Block List”.
Here, enter the name of the website you want to allow or block. For example, I entered https://www.youtube.com and clicked “Block” because I wanted to block this site. Similarly, I type https://www.guidingtech.com and click “Allow”.
That’s how you configure parental controls in Windows. You can set it up separately for different user accounts.
If you know of any tips and tricks related to this Windows feature then let us know in the comments section. Also, we’d love to get your feedback on this article.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
