This is located towards the bottom-right of the screen. You should then arrive here:. This starts off the whole process of creating profiles and setting limits for your children. When you set up your Windows PC or laptop for the first time, you will have created an Administrator profile during set up. This is the main profile you use to log in.
Create passwords for them or let them create their own. Parents may want to create passwords for their children, which means that they will need to ask permission to go online. Keep a note of the details you use to sign in. This will be your key to applying filters to adult sites and keep a log of which sites your children have been looking at. This section lets you apply blocks to a lists of websites including adult sites and social networks.
There are five different levels of block which can be applied and are as follows:. Setting up an allow list is perhaps a good idea for very young children who are just starting out with computers and are learning to use the web. Using the drop down to the right of the block button, you can specify whether or not changes apply to one person, all children or everyone in the family.
Activity reporting lets parents remotely monitor what sites their children have been accessing in a long which can be accessed at any time. The first thing you should do is actually turn on the parental controls, which will allow you to then set up restrictions for games and apps, as well as impose time limits on system use. Time limits are great because a chief complaint of many parents is that their kids are always on their computers, sometimes to the detriment of their grades, family relations, and social circles.
Regardless, if you want to scale back computer access to any user on your system, time limits are a great way to accomplish that. Setting up time limits is extremely simple. Choose blocks of time during which you want to prevent access. For example, in the previous screenshot, we are allowing access during school days and nights, but we will let them play on the computer for a few extra hours on Friday and Saturday nights. Note, you can only restrict use in hour increments on Windows 7 on Windows 8.
A great many games these days are full of violence, profanity, and sexual content which, in a lot of cases, is extremely realistic and graphic.
You can mitigate much of this risk by implementing game controls. In the screenshot below, you see you can leave a game to adhere to its rating, or explicitly block or allow specific titles. You can block those games without having to completely block computer use, which is an effective compromise because homework is often dependent upon Google and Wikipedia.
Finally, Windows 7 will let you limit programs to assigned users, so you can control or flat out stop unauthorized application use, such as the aforementioned web browser block, or block all applications except Word and Chrome, so the focus is on research and writing. Applying application restrictions is easy enough. Simply enable the option and then select the programs you want to explicitly allow. The main Parental Controls users screen will now reflect your changes.
How or if you implement a password policy is completely up to you, just remember, if you have a poorly-secured admin account, anyone who accesses that account can change or remove passwords, alter your settings, and install anything they want.
As far as the kids are concerned, passwords are important to not only protect their files, but instill good security habits. Take a moment to check out this article on securing user accounts and passwords in Windows if you want to learn more. Family Safety defers to an online interface, which requires an Internet connection to view reports and stats, change settings, add users, and more. If you use or are planning to install Windows 8. Unfortunately, it is a subject in and of itself and best left for an upcoming article.
Please click over to our discussion forum and feel free to leave a comment. Use Google Fonts in Word. Customize the Taskbar in Windows What Is svchost. Best Home Theater Systems. Best Smartwatches. Best Gaming Laptops. Best Smart Displays. Best Home Security Systems. Best External Solid State Drives. Best Portable Chargers. Turn on and Set up Windows 7 Parental Controls Log on as the administrator, and enable the following functions: Time Limits: Use a visual calendar of the hours of the day and days of the week to choose exactly when your kids can be online.
Your kids will only be able to log in to their user accounts during the periods you choose. Game Restrictions: Use game restrictions to block games according to their age ratings. For a breakdown of game ratings, see our section on setting game limits. Bottom Line Choose the Windows 7 parental controls that best fit your specific online needs.
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