Parental control time limits

[Theo Carr-Brion]

Can the parental conrol in Vista limit computer use to say 3 hours a day
or does it just prevent use outside certain times.

Thanks,

Theo Carr-Brion

 

[Jason]

Only selected hours.

--
Jason
Windows Vista RTM
MS Office 2007 RTM
Can the parental conrol in Vista limit computer use to say 3 hours a day
or does it just prevent use outside certain times.

Thanks,

Theo Carr-Brion

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Yes.

You select the hours that are not allowed, on a 7 day/24 hour calendar. Any
hours not selected will be allowed.

As a child nears the end of an approved time period, they receive a
15-minute and a 1-minute notification that their time is about toexpire. If
their time ends before they log off the computer, Windows Vista suspends
their session and displays the login screen so another user can use the
computer. The child's session stays active in the background, however, so
the next time they log on, they can pick up where they left off without
losing any of their work.

Try it for yourself. Open Control Panel/User Accounts and click the Parental
Controls link in the left sidebar. Set up a "test" user and fiddle with the
settings. Log off your account and log on with the test account to see the
effects.

Open Help and Support and search for Parental Controls for the instructions.

 

[Theo Carr-Brion]

Yes.

You select the hours that are not allowed, on a 7 day/24 hour calendar.
Any hours not selected will be allowed.

As a child nears the end of an approved time period, they receive a
15-minute and a 1-minute notification that their time is about toexpire.
If their time ends before they log off the computer, Windows Vista
suspends their session and displays the login screen so another user can
use the computer. The child's session stays active in the background,
however, so the next time they log on, they can pick up where they left
off without losing any of their work.

Try it for yourself. Open Control Panel/User Accounts and click the
Parental Controls link in the left sidebar. Set up a "test" user and
fiddle with the settings. Log off your account and log on with the test
account to see the effects.

Open Help and Support and search for Parental Controls for the
instructions.

Thanks,

Unfortunately this it not want I want. My problem, as a parent, is that
children spend far too long on the computer and say everything else is
boring. I would like to limit them to 3 hours a day to be used at any
time. It is easy to say they can't use it at particular times. It is
hard to say they have been on too long without carefully monitoring and
timing them, which is not practical.

Theo Carr-Brion

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

I doubt that you'll find any solution like you described, even with third
party applications.
--


Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

 

[Theo Carr-Brion]

I doubt that you'll find any solution like you described, even with
third party applications.

There are several third party offerings that do this. I contacted the
makers of the one I currently use and they said it might be a few months
before they can support Vista. I have found another that says it works
on Vista and I shall try it when I have more time. I was hoping Vista
would do it without me having to pay for other software. As it has the
time schedule it would be very easy to add a daily time limit.

Theo Carr-Brion

 

[Digital Dave]

We use Cyber Patrol and have been for over a year now.

Very easy, very powerful.

We really like it since we can set up total allowed time per day (this comes
in very handy since we allow them a little more time on the weekends).

Look at the site and see what they offer. We had a problem with World of
Warcraft (it somehow was getting around the time limits) so we emailed their
tech support and within an hour we had an answer on how to add that to the
time limit policy.

Now of course we are using this on an XP Pro System but per there tech
support, they will be supporting Vista after it's launched at the end of the
month.

We really like it.

//David
Shell/GUI MVP

 

[Theo Carr-Brion]

We use Cyber Patrol and have been for over a year now.

Very easy, very powerful.

We really like it since we can set up total allowed time per day (this
comes in very handy since we allow them a little more time on the
weekends).

I have looked at the web site and it looks good. How does it monitor and
impose the time limits? Does it allow internet access and restriced
program access for a given time after the user logs on or does it try to
to measure how long the restricted programs have been used? The manual
appears to suggest the latter but I can't see how it could work.

Thank you,

Theo Carr-Brion

 

[Freak]

My only other suggestion, is that if you want that sort of feature to
be part of Vista, is contact Microsoft through their site and let them
know what you are looking for. They may not contact you back, but it
will be helpful for them to know what people want and then you may see
it in a repair of service update.