Limiting Access to the Computer, to Programs, and to the Internet

If you want to allow or encourage your children to use the computer but are concerned about the amount of time or hours of the day they might spend "surfing" the Web or playing games, you can set time limits on their computer use and restrict access to games, to specific programs, and to Web sites displaying objectionable content. After setting up parental controls, you can generate activity reports to follow up on actual computer usage. And although this level of policing might not be necessary, perhaps just knowing that you can do it will provide some reassurance to you or reinforcement for your children.

In this exercise, you will set parental controls for another user account on your computer to limit the amount of time that user is allowed on the computer. You will then view the activity report that will be generated. There are no practice files for this exercise.

1.	Display Control Panel, and under User Accounts and Family Safety, click the Set up parental controls for any user task. Then in the User Account Control dialog box, if you're logged on as an administrator, click Continue. Otherwise, enter an administrator password, and click OK. The Parental Controls window opens. [View full size image]
2.	Click the user you want to set a time limit for. The User Controls window opens. [View full size image]
3.	Under Parental Controls, select the On, enforce current settings option, and then under Windows Settings, click Time limits. The Time Restrictions window opens.
4.	Click each hour in the grid that you want to block. [View full size image] During the blocked time periods, if the selected user tries to log on to his or her account, Windows Vista denies access to the account and displays a message that the user account is blocked at that time.
5.	In the Time Restrictions window, click OK.
6.	In the User Controls window, with the On, collect information about computer usage option selected under Activity Reporting, click View activity reports. The Activity Viewer displays the current (blank) report. [View full size image]
7.	Scroll the report to see the kinds of activities it tracks. Then in the upper-left corner of the Activity Viewer window, click the Back button. Back
8.	Under Windows Settings, investigate the Windows Vista Web Filter, Games, and Allow and block specific programs controls. Adjust the parental controls as you want, and then click OK.