- How to add pc to windows live family safety software#
- How to add pc to windows live family safety windows 7#
But if you are in control of all software installed on your computer, then you should easily be able to combine this section with the above application filtering to keep your younger kids from playing your M-rated games.Īnd don't forget, you can limit your 8 year old to games rated E and your teenagers to games rated T provided they each have their own log in account on your computer. While the interface is fairly clear, what remains to be seen is how completely software vendors will identify their games in Windows for this section to be effective. Additionally, you can prevent all games from being run. For example, you can set a maximum ESRB rating that your kids are allowed to play or select specific games to include or exclude. You can set this independently of applications, and with different properties. You can set limits on games: In addition to choosing what programs you can allow your kids to run, you can separately control what games your kids can play. So if you're unsure of what wab.exe is, the description column will kindly tell you that it's the Windows Address Book.Ĥ. Making the program selection (or de-selection) process easier, Microsoft displays any descriptions provided by the application developer are listed in the dialog. Therefore, you're better off allowing everything and disabling the specific programs you don't want them to use, such as a bit-torrent program or your financial software.
If you're cherry-picking programs, you may miss built-in programs such as Microsoft Paint or programs required for 3rd party software such as Apple's iTunes, meaning those programs may not function correctly. Enabling this feature presents you with a list of every program executable present on the computer. But with that power comes some tedious tweaking. You can control what programs can be ran: Arguably the most powerful feature in Windows 7's parental controls, you can set which installed programs can be ran under your child's account. And it's nice to see that Microsoft's help content is actually, well, helpful.Īdditionally, keep in mind that you can apply parental controls differently - or not at all - for every account on your computer.ģ. Information and options are presented clearly with helpful links peppered everywhere. Pictured here, you can easily access additional information about what parental controls allow you to do, and enabling that functionality is straight forward. Using technology such as parental controls will allow you to give your kids some autonomy to explore within the limits we set for them, and spur discussion when they reach those limits. We can't hover over their shoulder watching and instructing every move they make but we can still be involved. Similarly we also want to slowly introduce our kids to computing and the internet. Eventually we take off the training wheels completely.
Soon we give them more autonomy letting them ride up and down the street and later around the block unsupervised.
It's also nice to see that parental controls have received the same amount of attention.īut why do we need parental controls? Consider this analogy: As we teach our kids to ride a bike, we put on training wheels and supervise them as they ride up and down our driveway.
How to add pc to windows live family safety windows 7#
The release of Windows 7 is just months away and through release candidate testing it's clear that Microsoft has made massive amounts of improvements to their core product. Software vendors have been giving us parental controls for some time, but with Windows, Microsoft's offerings have been historically lackluster. As with all things our children experience, we parents want to be both involved and set limits on what they are doing on their own - especially at a young age. Using this technology to explore, learn, and have fun whether on the internet or playing games creates an environment where learning can be exciting. Using a computer can be an extremely enriching experience, especially for young people.