TECHNOLOGYTUTO

Your children have internet access on their computer and you would like to be able to keep  them from seeing things you find undesirable, instead of stay behind them to control them , set up a free window parental control .

 Note: For a best view of the screen shots  and pictures appearing  in this  post,  just click on them  to have a zoom on  the picture, and close them if you want.

Here you are at the right place. We are going to show you how to set up a parental control  on windows 7 that would allow you to manage how your children use the computer but limiting or choosing the web pages  that they can see,  the hours that they can log on to the computer, and which games or program  they can play or run.

To set up Parental Controls,

• You need to make sure that you have a Hotmail account  like this  ”myaccount@hotmail.com“, otherwise you have to create one before starting the process. You need to enter account name and password of this  account  when setting up the parental control, and it is useful because windows uses it to inform  you about everything allowed or not that your child tries to do on the computer with his/her account.
• You need  to connect with  an administrator  account on the computer that  you want to monitor, and make sure that each person you want to set up  a parental control for has a standard user account. Because parental controls can be applied only to standard user accounts. If you haven’t yet created a user account just read this post “create a  user account on Windows computer“.

1. If you have hotmail account created and you connected   with the the administrator account, go to  Start menu, click on  Control Panel, you will  have this Windows:
   
   Then, under User Accounts and Family Safety, click on  Set up parental controls for any user.‌ ‌  If you were connected  with a non administrator account you will be prompt  by a  window asking to enter an administrator password or confirmation,  in this last case type the password or provide confirmation for the administrator, then you will be at  prompt to this screen:
   
2. Click the standard user account that you want to set Parental Controls for. Here we choose the account  name Kid1. Then you will be prompted by this window below, enter your hotmail account and your password and click on sign in.It would take a certain time and then you will be prompted to this other window:
3. Select the user account you want to monitor on this computer: for our example  we click on Kid1 , then click on save , you will see this windows which is showing that the parental control is being set up.
   and if everything is good you will get this window:
   You see on the picture above  that , the web filtering: block adult sites have been activated and the activity reporting too.
   Click now on close, and your parental control has been turned on on the account Kid1 for this computer.Once you’ve turned on Parental Control for your child’s standard user account, you should customize the others parameters for a full control. this others parameters are:
4. Web filtering ( it allows to choose which web site your child could access or not ) when parental control is turn on this option is set up automaticaly to Block Adult Site. but  to add others filters, click on Web Filtering: for example if you don’t want your child to be able to download stuff on internet and you want him only to access website you will select, in your web Filtering window Uncheck  allow account to download file online and select with blue color allow list only like on this print screen below:Then  click on save, and on the left side select Web filtering list to add all the website you want your child to be able to access or add a specify website you don’t want him/ her to access. for example I want my child to be able to access only this two website:  www.eduplace.com and www.discoveryeducation.com, I would type their address one by one on the text zone then I would click on allow  and it would go into the list of allow websites like in these print screen below:
5. 
   Always click on save to save what you modified.
   
   Note: you can  also remove a website from a list of allow websites or from a list of block website only by checking the check box beside him and  by clicking on the remove button up to the list.
   
6. The Time limits (it is  time when the user or kid will be allowed to log on to the computer, the logon hours for every day of the week may be different, If they’re logged on when their allotted time end, they’ll be automatically logged off)  to set this up:-Go back to the user account you want to monitor  by going at control panel> then click on user account and family safety> then click on parental controls, click on the user account  and you will be prompt to  a Microsoft windows live asking to enter your hotmail email and your password, just enter this parameter like below:

and click on sign in, you will be prompt to your hotmail account like on this windows below:

At the top right, click on Time limits  link to open the time limit interface  and  an time limit interface would appears like below with a weekly time table, but it will be  inactive until you turn the time limit on:

So , check the radio button turn on the time  limit , then the time table will became more clear (active).

Select the space of time you want your kid to not be able to connect to the computer with his account, by holding the rigth click of your mouse down and go through it.

For my sample I would like my kid to not log on  to this computer  from Monday to Friday from 11AM to 06 PM and from 09PM to  11PM. It means that I want him to be connected only from 06PM to 09 pm, also  I would like him to be able to connect on Saturday and Sunday between 03PM and 08 PM only.  After having set all this restriction, my time limit interface would be like below:

always save your modification by clicking on the  save button .

6.The Games (it  allows to control access to games, you can choose the kind of games he can play, the age-rating level he can play, choose the types of games you want to block, and decide whether you want to allow or block unrated or specific games.

• Choose games rating level : According to the age of your child, choose  a game rating level in the list of  all the games rating level below , Just try to read the explanation of a  rating level before choosing  it. For example my  child is  8 years old  and I choose the early childhood rating level because the content is appropriate for child. see the print screen below:
  

Then click on save to save. After you can choose a specific game you want to allow or block.

• Block or Allow specific game:   Click  on the button situated under the list of rating level to activate a specific game you want to allow or block. you would get this window after clicking:

Then check   beside the games you want to allow in the “always allow “column and  the one you want to block on the “always block” column. For my case I want my kid account kid1 to always be able to play, family games and kids games only. So  after setting this, my windows look like this:

Tips: In order to not waste time checking those rows, If you see that the number of games to block is more than the games to allow, start by checking the “always block radio button”  himself which will block all the games and then you could check beside each game you want to allow. then click on save to save your modification.

7.Application and directories  restriction:  you can restrict which application/directory on the computer the account/child can access. For that, click on app restriction on the left sidebar of the hotmail account , you will get this windows:

Check the  turn on radio button to activate this features, if you know the name of the applications/directories you want to block , just look at it in the list of applications on the computer and check the check box near to the application you want to block , for example for my case I blocked 2 applications to  the account I am monitoring   and you may see the application checked like in this picture below.

Tips: you can even use the search zone to search for an application or directory you want to block by typing  its name in the search zone, before checking it in order to blocked access to it to your child account.

then save the changes by clicking on the save button.

8.Activity Reporting: Make sure activity reporting  is turn on because it will allow you to have a report of the account activities, for that:

-In the same  hotmail account on the left side bar click on activity reporting and check the “turn on activity reporting radio button”, and you can come there every time to follow  the account activities. there ,  you would see a summary of  account  activities by clicking on the summary tab , or you can see his web activity by clicking on the web activity tab like below:


Or you can see his computer activity by clicking on the  computer activity tab like here:

then save by clicking on the save button,

9.Contact Management: If your child, or the account your set up a parental control for has a hotmail account or msn messenger account you can always control  who your child or the account  chats and shares email with. For it ,  click on the left sidebar of your  hotmail account and click on  Contact Management, then you will get this window:


Click on add your child windows live id,  you need to have your child  hotmail account or msn account and his password  ready with you, a new pop up window will open, click on the appropriate lint to add his hotmail or msn account

10. Allow request of a website/  games blocked or of adding a new msn contact:  Sometime the account you are monitoring may want to allow certain websites/games you have blocked without knowing the importance or a new website or games good for him, or even want to add a new contact in his msn/hotmail account , you can always come to “ request” to see what your child / account your are monitoring request you, by  clicking on request in the left sidebar then choose the appropriate tab to see what website has been  requested  or  which contacts  has been requested. This window look like this:

after all this done you may be sure that the account won’t  access stuff you didn’t allow him to access. And if your child try to access a website site or an information you don’t allow,  he /his would receive a  window  like this below:

If you like this tutorial, please  consider post  a  comment ! 

You want to share your computer with others persons and you don’t know how to prevent them to share the same desktop like you, the only thing you can do is to create an account on your computer for any different user.

Note: For a best view of the screen  shots and pictures appearing  in this  post,  just click on them  to have a zoom on  the picture, and close them if you want.

1.  First make sure you have been connected with an administrator account  on your computer (the first account that have been created when the computer have been setup)

a. Then click on the start button  on control panel you would have this windows that would open if the view by category is actived.

1. On the option user account and family safety click on add or remove user account, this windows would open:
2. Click on create a new account, this windows would open after:
   
   
3. In the input text  situated under the text  “this name will appear……..” enter the name of the user that  you want to create the account, this name would be used by him to connect to his own space on this computer, then leave the  radio button near to standard user checked,  because the account you are  about to create is a standard account.Note: If you want to create an administrator account:  Here you would choose the radio button “Administrator” instead of “standard account”. Now  click on ‘‘Create account”bouton’ below.
4. This would return you to the first screen we saw before but with one more account created: the new account. For our example  we created the user account name: Kid1 like in following  windows:
5. If you stop here and use the account, this account exist but is not enough secure because the account doesn’t have a password and so everybody could connect on this account without password. Then the  better way to protect the account is to create a password for this account. on the last screen we got  after step 4, click on the account you have just created and you would get this windows:

Note:Notice that in this screen you can :

• Change account name,
• Create password & remove password,
• Change the user account picture,
• Change the account type for example from standard to administrator,
• Delete the account.

From the windows openned when you clicked on the new user account, click on the link “create a password” and this windows would open:

6.In the input zone text type the new password and retype it in the second one to confirm it.

Check that your password respect those requierements below to be sure to have a strong password that can not be easily find by hacker:

• Is at least eight characters long.
• Does not contain your user name, real name, or company name,
• Does not contain a complete word,
• Is significantly different from previous passwords,
• And content a mix of characters of 3 out of this 4 categories
  -Uppercase letters A, B, C,…..Z ,
  – Lowercase letters a, b, c,…..z ,
  -Numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
  -Symbols found on the keyboard (all keyboard characters not defined as letters or numerals) and spaces ex: ` ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } [ ] \ | : ; ” ‘ < > , . ? /For the user account Kid1 that we have created, we choose the password NakOW@12k.7.You can also create a password hint to help user remember his password if he loose it. but know that the password hint would be visible by anyone using the computer.
• Note:You should  know that a password should be created at the same time as its hint, if you want to create a hint for an existing password you would change the password first and create the new one at the same time with hint.
• Let enter the following hint for our new password and click on button ‘‘create password’‘and you will be prompt to another windows :
  Note: if you look well this last window , you will notice that it is the same window as the first windows of step 5, the alone difference is that you have the link change password instead of create password,because at this step the password already exist. Now you can close the windows, if you type the wrong password when you are logging on to the computer with this account, hint will be show on the window screen and you could use it to log on  to your computer with your user account.

           If you like this tutorial, please consider post  a  comment !