{"id":429,"date":"2021-08-31T16:28:33","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T16:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/?page_id=429"},"modified":"2021-10-05T17:00:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T17:00:04","slug":"setting-up-parental-controls-in-windows-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/setting-up-parental-controls-in-windows-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting up Parental Controls in Windows 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Geier<\/b><\/p>\n

The Internet is a never-ending web of information, photos, videos, files, and people. We all know some of this material is good and some of it is bad. To protect your children from the bad portions of the Internet, you need to couple a parental control system with good ol\u2019 supervision.<\/p>\n

In this article, we\u2019ll discover how Windows 7 can help protect your youngsters. We\u2019ll review its Parental Controls. We\u2019ll set up time limits for computer usage, set gaming and program restrictions, enable web filtering, and check out activity monitoring.<\/p>\n

This is only Microsoft\u2019s second Windows edition with Parental Controls. They first debuted with Windows Vista. They were long overdue. Before that, parents didn\u2019t really have any control over their children\u2019s computer usage unless they used a third-party application.<\/p>\n

Getting Started<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s bring up the Parental Controls. The quickest way is to click Start, type\u00a0Parental Controls<\/i>, and hit Enter. You can also navigate there: click Start > Control Panel, click User Accounts and Family Safety, and click Parental Controls.<\/p>\n

Figure 1 shows an example of this main Parental Controls window.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll see an icon for each user along with their details. Simply click the icon for the user account you want to configure with Parental Controls. If the account is classified as an Administrator, you\u2019ll receive a prompt about converting it to a Standard account that can have Parental Controls imposed.<\/p>\n

As Figure 2 shows, on a user\u2019s page you\u2019ll see their Parental Controls status and shortcuts to configure the settings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you used the Parental Controls in Windows Vista, you might notice something missing: the Web Filtering settings. That\u2019s because Microsoft removed the native web filter and created an add-on type of approach as we\u2019ll discuss later.<\/p>\n

Configuring the Basic Settings<\/h3>\n

The first step is enabling Parental Controls for a user. On a user\u2019s Parental Controls page, select the\u00a0On<\/i>, enforce current settings<\/i>\u00a0option on the top. Now that they\u2019re on, you must configure the settings.<\/p>\n

To configure exactly when they can or cannot use the computer with their account, click the\u00a0Time limits<\/i>\u00a0link. Using your cursor, you can highlight the blocks of time you want to prevent computer access to the color blue. If you mess up click or highlight them again to change them back to white. Figure 3 shows an example of blocking a user from the computer during the hours of 10pm to 7am. When you\u2019re done, click OK.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Next you can configure gaming restrictions by clicking the\u00a0Games\u00a0<\/i>link off the user\u2019s main window. Then you can specify whether or not he or she can play any games. If you allow games, you can then choose which game ratings to allow and\/or block or allow specific games.<\/p>\n

Next you can optionally set program restrictions; click the\u00a0Allow and block specific programs<\/i>\u00a0link on the user\u2019s main Parental Control page. You can simply allow he or she to use all programs or choose only those you approve. Manually selecting programs is usually the best approach for the best protection, but takes the most time to setup. For instance, if you find programs later you should have added, you must log off or switch users to get into your Administrator account to change the program restrictions.<\/p>\n

Getting Web Filtering and Monitoring<\/h3>\n

As mentioned before, Microsoft used to offer web filtering and monitoring in Windows Vista. They still offer this in Windows 7; however you must install the free Family Safety component from the Windows Live product-line. Though it\u2019s an extra step, you now set and review the filtering and monitoring via a web site, such as Figure 4 shows. Now you can review settings and check reports without physically being on the child\u2019s PC.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you want this functionality, go to the Windows Live site and\u00a0download it<\/a>. During the installation, you can uncheck the other Windows Live components if you prefer only to install the filtering and monitoring. Remember, this filtering only works on computers that you\u2019ve installed it on. If your children use multiple computers, you must install it on each.<\/p>\n

Once it\u2019s installed, go back to the Parental Controls window. Then under the Additional Controls area, select the\u00a0Windows Live Family Safety\u00a0<\/i>option as the Provider. Your web browser should then pop-up and ask you to login with the Windows Live ID which you created when downloading the component.<\/p>\n

You configure the Family Safety settings via the web browser at their site:\u00a0http:\/\/fss.live.com<\/a>. Don\u2019t worry if you forget the URL. You can always bring up the site by clicking the shortcut under a user\u2019s Parental Control page in Windows.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Stop at Controls and Filtering<\/h3>\n

We\u2019ve set up the Parental Controls in Windows 7 to help protect our youngsters on the computer and Internet. Remember, you still need to keep track of their usage and activity. One last tip: Everyone should use a password, so they can\u2019t login to your Administrator account and they can\u2019t login to their sibling\u2019s account which may have different restrictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric Geier The Internet is a never-ending web of information, photos, videos, files, and people. We all know some of this material is good and some of it is bad. To protect your children from the bad portions of the Internet, you need to couple a parental control system with good ol\u2019 supervision. In this article, we\u2019ll discover how Windows 7 can help protect your youngsters. We\u2019ll review its Parental Controls. We\u2019ll set up time limits for computer usage, set gaming and program restrictions, enable web filtering, and check out activity monitoring. This is only Microsoft\u2019s second Windows edition <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}