Vista Parental Control

Worried about the kids spending too much time on the internet and too little on homework? Microsoft Windows Vista has a solution to that. They have what they call time limits for each Vista Account. The user with Administrative rights will be able to prescribe the length of use and add restrictions on time on a user account. This will enable the parents to monitor the kid’s daily use of the computer as to the length of time they use it. Unfortunately, it is only the number of hours that the kids log on to the computer that is monitored, and not the content of what is being surfed.

For example you have grounded your child for a week and limited his use of the computer for an hour everyday for research. You can also set the time when the child can log on to the computer, especially when you are out and not able to supervise them. You just have to make sure that all administrative accounts are given passwords to be able to truly limit their use of the computer.

To protect your Administrative accounts by using passwords, go first to Start, then to Control Panel, and then Users, Accounts and Family. On User Accounts, select to Change Windows password then enter the password on the space provided.

1. To set the time limitations on the user account,
2. Click on the Start button.
3. Go to Control Panel, then click on User Accounts and Family Safety.
4. On the next window, select Set up PC for any user under Parental Control heading.
5. The window for Parental Control will come up. There are several options to choose from in this window. The first is to turn on Parental Controls.
6. Select the option to turn “On to enforce current settings” to be able to manage the current settings as well as switch on other settings.
7. After this, scroll downwards and click on Time Limits. This will open a window with a table that has the name of days on the left side and 24 hours on top. This table corresponds to the hours within the given week.
8. To set the time limits for a specific user, decide on the times that your child is allowed to use the computer, then block out the times that they are restricted by highlighting the corresponding cells with the mouse pointer. These cells will turn into a blue color to indicate that this user is blocked from using the computer during this time. The spaces that are left white or uncolored are those times that the user is allowed to access the computer.
9. When you are done with their schedule, click on the OK button to save the settings.
10. Then log out of the administrator account.

Now, you are able to monitor and control your kids’ computer usage, even if you are not at home. Whenever they are allowed to use the computer, they will be issued a 15 minute and a 1 minute warning that their session will shut down. Brilliant, isn’t it?