Parental Controls is a new feature in Windows Vista that allows parents to better control how children use the computer. As a parent you can restrict your children to navigate on certain websites, play certain games, which programs can run, how long to use the computer, etc...
How to enable and how to set up Parental Control
For Parental Control to work, you need to have at least 2 accounts: An account with administrator privileges (the parent) and another limited account (for the child) - you could have more than one account, different for each child. If you don't know how to create accounts read How to create user accounts in Vista.
To enable Parental Control follow the steps:
Click the Start Orb, go to Control Panel and click on “Set up parental controls for any user” below the “User Accounts and Family Safety”.
Choose the account you wish to enable Parental Control for and select “ON, enforce current settings”
The options here are pretty self explanatory:
- Windows Vista web filter - here you can control your child's internet browsing and you can either specify the websites to block or the ones that you want to allow.
- Time limits - specify the time your children are not allowed to use the computer.
- Games - control which games your children are allowed to play. You can block games that don't have a certain rating or you can manually restrict any game (even though it's not rated).
- Allow and block specific programs - controls which programs your children are allowed to run.
Besides restricting your children to have access to certain website and applications, monitoring their activity is also an important factor in keeping your computer safe for children. To find out what are your kids doing on your computer, click on the “View activity reports” link.
By viewing this report, you can see what applications your children used (and for how long), what websites they visited, a list with emails they sent/received, instant messaging activities and many more.
Nick Zara maintains a bi-weekly newsletter. To read more from Nick visit his Windows Vista help, tutorial and tricks website.