How To Set Up Windows Vista Parental Controls

Windows Vista is an older Windows operating system used on PCs and tablets. It was made available to the general public in January 2007 and received its final update in Service Pack 2, which was released in May 2009. Even though it’s no longer updated, parents can still set restrictions.

Setting Up Parental Restrictions

How to create a user account for your child

  1. Open the Control Panel.
  2. Select User Accounts and Family Safety.
  3. Click Add or Remove User Accounts to set up your child’s user account.
    1. Make sure this account is a non-administrator. Otherwise, your child has access to the area where parental controls are set.

How to access parental controls for your child’s account

  1. Click Set up Parental Controls for Any User to start the process.
  2. Click the user account you want to set controls for from the list.
  3. Enable parental controls by clicking On, Enforce current settings.
  4. If you want to get a report of the child’s user activity, then click On, Collect information about computer usage. This way, you’ll be able to see all the websites your child looks at, the files they downloaded, when they logged on, the programs they used, and more.
  5. Use the Windows Vista Web Filter to control your child’s internet experience.
    1. Choose the content you wish to block or allow.
    2. Choose to allow or block file downloads.
  6. Use the Time limits section to control the times your child can use the computer.
  7. Use the Games section to control the games your child can play.
    1. Choose the rating, or mix and match content.
    2. Choose the games rating provider.
    3. Block specific games, if you wish.
  8. Allow or block use of specific programs.
  9. Click OK when finished.
  10. Repeat for any additional children.


How to Monitor Content

In addition to setting parental controls on your child's device, the next safety layer parents and caregivers should strongly consider is a monitoring solution to assess the content their kids encounter (and produce) across text messages, social media, and email. Bark can do this for you. You can install Bark on the Google Chrome web browser of your child's PC, Chromebook, or Mac, so any activity they have on Chrome and Safari, like web browsing (including Incognito Browsing!) and web searches will be sent to Bark for analysis of worrisome content. If you'd like to see a detailed list of everything Bark can monitor, click here.

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