Mastering Windows Vista Parental Controls

As we look at how teens use computers and how to limit their access to information and games that don't fit their age, Microsoft is also beginning to notice the problem. Parental controls in Windows Vista are a compelling new feature that is being advertised on a variety of occasions. is parental control effective? Today, let's take a look at Vista's parental controls together.

Because the work has always been related to the computer, every time back home, there will always be relatives in the chat worried about the children in the family to use the computer problem. Of course, the core of the topic is naturally two--a family without a computer, and the little ones keep arguing and buying, news from various media and let adults wary, can not be kept in front of the computer every day staring at what they are doing it; adults with computers in their homes complain that children play games for too long, or accidentally see a page on a computer screen filled with content far beyond the age of the child-but for the latter, I absolutely believe that even without the computer, now the media has already let the children prematurely precocious up, parents in this regard is more "pure" than the child.

Of course, this is not the time to denounce irresponsible media, when we are watching how teens use computers and how to keep them away from information and games that don't fit their age, and Microsoft is starting to notice that. In Windows Vista, parental Controls (parental control) are advertised in a variety of contexts as a compelling new feature. However, for this function, I have always been full of questions, after all, the domestic situation is different from Western countries, for example, the speed of computer in the family and parents to promote the actual application of the level of the serious disconnect, as well as the domestic application of software and website ratings on the current lack of operational means. So, with these questions, I carefully evaluated the parental control features of the Chinese version of Windows Vista Ultimate Beta2. Today, let's take a look at the parental control features of Vista.

Primary Parental Control

The children of each family are different, because the environment and gender differences, children's computer preferences are also diverse. Boys may enjoy playing more games, and girls are more likely to be attracted to chat and fashion information on the site. As you age, parents may be less likely to use their children's computers. In such a complex situation, the parental controls in Vista provide a variety of strategies to control the user flexibly, you can control the children's time to use the computer, you can control the applications they can use, web pages that can be browsed, web games that can be played, and so on. You can even see their recent summary of activity reports on their computers, such as what they downloaded, what pages they browsed, and so on. This flexible solution makes parental controls for Windows Vista, which is designed for different types of users, each family can be configured according to the actual situation-I even doubt whether the future computer companies will specifically address this aspect of personalized parental Control service business.

Interface and function

Open the Control Panel and you will find that parental controls are part of "User account and home security". Vista divides the Control panel components of different functions into different categories, and the user is able to visually see the representative settings under a large class, so that they can see where they need to go without losing their way to a wide range of control functions-although Windows XP is starting to have a similar idea, but obviously Windows Vista is going to do better. Figure 1 shows the home page view of the Control Panel, click "Set Parental Controls" and let's see what's inside. On the Parental Controls page, you can select a user and set up parental controls. Because Vista has focused all the related feature settings on the same topic in one location, so you just need to be able to do all the settings you need in this one place, and no more than in the previous version, where the setup of a feature often needs to be exhausted at multiple locations-which is simply not true for the novice user possible tasks to accomplish. I wonder if you have noticed the "parental control" link in the interface? I like Vista's self-answering help service, which makes me know what it is and what it should do when I see a term that Microsoft loves so much.

Figure 1:vista Control Panel Home