Easy Parental Control in Windows Vista

Second step: Set up Parental Controls on existing accounts

2010-02-23T11:01:00.001-08:00

Now, two accounts have been created. On the upper right corner of the Control Panel window, single click on Set up Parental Controls for any user. Select any user account of your interest, in our case, "brandon" account.

Remember that this account is for school work related use, such as, checking home work assignments and grades, emails and news.

Let's walk through the options:

Enable Parental Controls so that all other options on this window will take effect
Optionally enable Activity Reporting to have Windows to collect information about computer usage
Single click on Windows Vista Web Filter leads us to Web Restrictions for "brandon".

Here we enable Block some websites or content and created a block list for facebook.com etc.

The list can be obtained by inspecting the activity report mentioned above. Basically, all sites that do not have anything to do with his school work could be candidates for blockage. We also choose the Custom web restriction level and select all categories that are inappropriate for him. You may also Enable Block file downloads in this window if you wish. Click OK when complete.
Single click on Time Limits leads us to Time Restrictions where we can control when"brandon" can use this computer. Toggle the time slots to allow or block usage, displayed in blue color.

Click OK when complete.
Single click on Games leads us to Game Controls where we disable game playing. Click OK when complete.
Single click on Allow and block specific programs leads us to Application Restrictions. Here "brandon" can use all programs. Click OK when complete.
Back in User Controls window, the current settings of this account are displayed on the right hand side. Single click on View activity reports to bring up the Activity Viewer for all user accounts. Single click on any user account on the left hand side to view its history of Web Browsing, System, and Applications Run and etc.

Recalling the account created for "play", the primary differences are on the Web filter, Time limit and Games settings:

On the Web Restrictions, we enable Block some websites or content and create an Allow list which contains only those appropriate sites that we agreed upon. We enable Only allow websites which are on the allow list.
On the Time Restrictions, we only open those agreed upon time slots. We reward good behavior or school reports with extra time slots.
On the Game Controls, we enable game playing up to TEEN rating.

This concludes Parental Controls set up.

First Step: Create User Accounts in Windows Vista

2010-02-23T08:30:00.001-08:00

In order to accomplish the three goals listed earlier, the first step is to create user accounts for him. We created one account for his school work "brandon" and another account "play". He uses account "brandon" to research for his home work, news and emails, or those "non-play" activities. On the other hand, he uses account "play" for playing games and visiting facebook.com. We found out that he could spend too much time on facebook so a limit has to be set.

In Windows Vista, log in an administrative user account. User accounts are created in the Control Panel. To bring up Control Panel window:

Single click on Start , located at the lower left corner of your desktop, or you can press the Windows key, normally located at the lower left corner of your keyboard

Single click on Settings, shown below

Single click on Control Panel to bring up the Control Panel shown below
Single click on Add or remove user accounts. If a Windows needs your permission to continue window pops up, click Continue.
Single click on Create a new account

In our case, we created two standard user accounts: "brandon" and "play".

Why Parental Controls?

2010-02-23T07:55:00.000-08:00

We have a teenager in our family. We understand that he needs to use computer for his home work after coming back from school. We bought a new computer a year or so ago for hm. He often plays computer games and goes to social networking sites, such as facebook.com, to interact with school friends and neighborhood kids with similar age. However, with the easy access to the huge amount of information available on the internet, often inappropriate for his age, we are concerned about his online safety. We also learned that kids often forget about what they need to do and need help to prioritize their time between home work and computer play time. We felt that we needed to do the following:

Set a limit on his computer time
Allow or block his use of certain computer programs or games
Limit his access to appropriate sites that we all agree upon