How To Set Parental Control Settings In Windows 7
Windows 7 comes with Parental Control feature. Using this feature, you can control your Kids from how they use your PC. You can create a new account for your Kid and configure the account in many ways. You can set time limits for the account during which your Kid can use the PC.
Parental controls also lets you configure which games your Kid can play on your PC. Which means you can block those “A” rated games and bloody games that have too much violence. You can also configure Windows 7 so as to which programs they can run in your PC.
Here is a detailed step-by-step guide on how to set and configure Parental Controls in Windows 7.
1. Log-in as administrator of your PC.
2. Click Start –> Control Panel–> Category view
3. Under “User Accounts and Family Safety” section, click on “Set up parental controls for any user”.
4. Click on your Kids account.
Set Time Limits and Control When Your Kid uses the Computer
5. In Parental Controls, select “On, enforce current settings” and then click on “Time limits” in “Windows Settings”.
6. In the “Time Restrictions” window, click and drag the hours you want to block or allow. Click “OK”.
Windows 7 will not let your Kid to log-in to your PC for the blocked hours indicated by blue color. This way, you can have a control over yours Kid time with PC.
Control Games by Rating, Content, or Title which your Kid can Play
Kids love Gaming. Some games are good. But there are plenty of games which are ‘not good’ for the young tender brains. You can configure Windows 7 and block games that your Kid should not play. You can block games based on their rating or titles.
1. Click “Games” (Refer screen-shot below).
2. In the Game Restrictions window, you can control games which your Kid can play. You have an option to block games with no rating. Apart from this, you can choose to allow games based on their rating defined by Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).
You can block any specific games by choosing “Always Block” option. For example we blocked “Mahjong Titans” in the screen-shot below.
After done with your selection, click “OK” to save settings.
Allow and Block Programs for any Account
Windows 7 lets you control which programs can be allowed or blocked to run for a specific account. So, you can use this feature to configure your Kids account to block any programs from running.
1. Click “Allow and block specific programs” as shown in screen-shot below.
2. You will taken to a window in which you can set application restrictions. Choose “Kid Account can only use the programs I allow” and then check the programs that can be used. After you are done, click OK to save settings.
Finally, you can see the summary of all the three Parental Controls settings you have configured till now as shown in screen-shot below.
In the User Accounts, you will now see your Kid account showing “Parental Controls On” tag.
Enjoy! Got any questions? Use the comment form below to submit your feedback.