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Microsoft realizes the parents’ concern for their kids; therefore, the Parental Controls feature has been made more sophisticated, effective, and easily configurable in Windows 7. It can be used to manage and control the time spent by children on the Windows 7 system and its programs. This Parental Controls feature is helpful to prevent your kids from abuse, violence, cyberbullying, cybercrimes, online threats, sexual predators, etc. The following steps help you to configure the Parental Controls feature in Windows 7 to protect your kids from deceptive things:
- Click Start > Control Panel. The Control Panel window appears.
- Click the All Control Panel Items option.
- Click Parental Controls option. You may be asked to provide administrator password. In that case, specify the password to go ahead.
- Select a standard user account for which you want to set the parental control. The User Control window appears.
- Click the On, enforce current settings option under the Parental Controls section.
- Click the On, collect information about computer usage option under the Activity Reporting section if you want to know that which program at which time has been accessed and used by the standard user. If you configure this option then on the basis of the activity report you can further redefine the parental control settings, if required. The activity report provides you information about the following:
- Date, time, and duration for which the system is used
- Websites that are accessed during a specific time period
- Files downloaded including their location on the computer
- Recently used software applications and blocked software programs
- Computers games played on the computer
- Sent and received emails including their content
- Duration for which the instant messaging programs are used, including the duration for which Webcam and audio setup are used
- SMS sent to mobile phones using instant messaging programs
- Files and links exchanged using instant messaging programs
- Song and movies played on the computer
- Now, the actual configuration starts. In Windows 7, you can configure the following settings to take advantage of the parental control feature:
Note: You can directly search for the Parental Controls feature in your Start button search bar and access it from there too.
- Windows 7 Web Filter: Facilitates you to configure settings to allow or block Websites, allow or restrict downloading, etc. Using this feature you can block Websites that contain material related to mature content, violence, gambling, etc.
- Time limits: This feature helps you set the duration during which the standard user can logon to the computer. As soon as the duration is completed, the standard user gets automatically logged off. Using this feature you can set different logon timing for all seven days of a week. Setting the time limits is easy by dragging the hours for blocking or allowing for your children.
- Games: Using this feature you can specify the games that the standard user (child) can play. The criteria for blocking games are ratings, game names, type of content, etc.
- Allow and block specific programs: Helps you to configure settings to allow or block software programs that the standard user can execute.
In this way, you can configure parental control in Windows 7 to protect your child from accessing websites containing mature content, playing violent games, using computer for hours just for time pass, etc.
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Read Also : Disable the System Tray in Windows 7
Summary
This blog was dedicated to the advantageous feature of the Windows 7 system known as Parental Controls which included all the advantages and options with explanations to the users to control system usage time for their kids. In addition, a smart Windows recovery tool is recommended for users suffering from corrupt or inaccessible file system data.