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Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows Vista, provides a number of parental controls to help keep children safe and allow parents to limit how their children use the computer. From protecting children from undesirable web sites to limiting the times which children can use the computer these powerful tools allow parents to determine the best use of the computer for their children.

Vista's parental controls allow parents to help their children make the proper choices in their computer use. The very things that make computers so valuable to adults can be a real threat to impressionable youngsters. The wide open nature of the Internet, while allowing adults the opportunity to learn and grow, can give children access to information and threats that parents should monitor. While, hopefully, adults have developed the self control to know what an appropriate amount of time to spend playing games and other activities on the computer, children may not have the maturity to know when to step away.

To use parental controls you have to create separate accounts for each user. To setup accounts you use the Add or Remove User Accounts applet from control panel. Be certain that your children's accounts are created as "Standard User". You also want to make sure that any adult accounts that don't have parental controls enabled are password protected to ensure your children can't get around the system by logging in as someone else.

To get to the Parental Controls application you select the User Accounts and Family Safety applet from Control Panel and select the account for which you wish to enable controls. From here you can set the controls that are appropriate for your child. There is a selection in the applet to turn parental controls on and off. For each child using the computer you may wish to use different settings for each account. Older children may not need as many restrictions as younger children.

If you wish you can turn on Activity Reports. These reports allow you to monitor how your child uses the computer. Once again a simple on/off selection is available. With reporting turned on you can click the button to "View Activity Reports" to the right in the applet to review everything that has been done with the monitored account.

From the User Accounts and Family Safety applet you can also restrict web access. From that window, under Windows Settings, select "Windows Vista Web Filter". You can choose specific sites to block access or only grant access to specific sites. There is also an option to automatically block sites based on ratings from Microsoft. The automatically blocked sites can be adjusted by restriction levels that you feel are appropriate to your child. You can also restrict your children's access to downloading files.

To restrict the times that your children are allowed to log into and use the computer you can select "Time Limits". This brings up a grid of blocks for each day of the week. Simply click and drag to change the status of the times from "Allowed" to "Blocked" and back.

Finally, Vista parental controls allow you to restrict what games your children can play and what programs they can run. By selecting "Games" you can control the games played by game ratings or block or allow specific games. By selecting "Allow and block specific programs" you can do just what that says.

Parental controls let you allow your children access to the computer without you having to worry about how they are using it. You control what your children can do on the system and when they can do it, even when you're not around to monitor their access directly.

Learn more about this author, Keith Hamburger.
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