Using Windows 10’s parental controls
CREATE A SAFER ENVIRONMENT FOR KIDS USING WINDOWS’ BUILT-IN FILTERING FEATURES.
ALTHOUGH IT DOESN’T get a lot of press, one of the things that Microsoft has steadily improved over the years is the parental controls in Windows. You might not even know that Windows 10 now has some very solid cloud-managed parental controls built-in, somewhat similar to something like Norton Family or BitDefender Parental Control. It’s not as good as those two paid solutions — it’s not cross platform (though it does work for Xbox) and only works for Edge and IE web browsers — but as a free, built-in solution, it’s actually pretty good.
This month, we’re going to quickly walk through setting it up.
STEP 1. CREATE MICROSOFT ACCOUNTS FOR YOUR KIDS AND REGISTER THEM AS FAMILY.
Microsoft Family parental controls use the Microsoft Login to identify users and apply rules to their online activities. That means two things: your kids need their own Microsoft Accounts; and they have to use that account to log into Windows or Xbox.
If you use an old fashioned Windows login for your PC, you’ll have to switch to using a Microsoft account. You can do that by going to ‘Settings > Accounts’ and clicking on ‘Sign in with a Microsoft Account instead’.
The easiest way to create separate Microsoft accounts for your kids is to go to account.
microsoft.com/family. You can also just go to ‘Programs > Windows Defender Security Center > Family Options’ and click on the View family settings, which will open a browser and take you to this page. This is actually the main portal for Parental Control management, and it’s one you’ll be working in a lot.
We need to start populating your list of family members. On the main page, you see a link: ‘Add a family member’. Click on it.
A pop up window will appear asking you to enter the Microsoft account email address you’d like to add as a family member, and asking if they’re a child or adult. If your kids don’t have a Microsoft account, you can create one here by clicking on ‘Create one for them’. A new tab will open, and there will be the quick account creation option, at the end of which, the child will automatically be added to your Family list.
You can go ahead and create as many accounts as you have kids. You can also add adult family members, who can also have access to the same set of parental controls as you.
STEP 2. ENABLE WEB AND APP LOGGING.
If you’d like to get reports on what websites your kids are visiting and what apps they’re using (and for how long), you need to switch on reporting.
Next to the child’s name on the Family page of the Microsoft account site, click on Check recent activity. This will take you to that child’s control page and the Recent Activity page. You can choose to have weekly reports emailed to the email address registered with Microsoft.
Switch the Activity Reporting to ‘On’ and it will start keeping logs of every website the child visits in Edge or Internet Explorer. It won’t log web pages visited in other browsers, though, so you’ll either need to disable them in ‘Apps, games & media’ or switch on Web browsing restrictions, which will automatically block Chrome and Firefox.
STEP 3. SWITCH ON WEBSITE RESTRICTIONS.
Now it’s time to start locking that kid down. Click on ‘Web browsing’ on the left, then switch the ‘Block Inappropriate Web Sites’ switch to ‘On’.
Switching this on will prevent other major browsers like Chrome and Firefox from launching on any PC the child is using. In Edge and IE, it will prevent them from visiting inappropriate sites, based on their age (which is entered when you create the account).
Unfortunately, you don’t really have much control over what Microsoft considers appropriate, but for young kids, you can also apply a white list, creating a list of sites that you deem to be OK. If you check the ‘Only see web sites on allowed list’, all sites except those you specify will be blocked.
STEP 4. BLOCK SPECIFIC APPS AND GAMES.
You can block access to particular apps here. First head to the ‘Apps, games & media’ tab on the left, then turn on the switch for ‘Block inappropriate apps and games’. (Note that if you’ve enabled Web browsing restrictions, this will already be on, and the list of blocked apps pre-populated with common browsers. This is to prevent them from using browsers other than Edge.)
Now head back to ‘Recent activity’. Under the list of apps and games, you’ll see a list of the things they’ve recently used. You can block any one of them by clicking on the Block link next to the app name.
Back in the ‘Apps, games & media’ tab, you can remove apps from the blocked list. You can also set restrictions on the games and apps bought from the Microsoft or Xbox Store based on their maturity rating.
STEP 5. SET TIME RESTRICTIONS
Click on the ‘Screen time’ tab. Here’s where you can configure the hours that your kids have access to their Xbox or PC.
It’s broken down for Xbox and PC separately, with separate switches for each. Appropriate access hours are indicated in green, with 7am to 10pm allowed by default. Click anywhere on the bar next to a given day, and you can remove that default allowed access period and/or add new ones. If the child tries to access their device at any other time (ie the times not marked in green), they will be blocked.
You can also set a hard limit on how much screen time per day they have. Next to the day, there’s a drop-down box for daily allowance, with settings in 30 minutes intervals (default is unlimited). Once they reach their allotted screen time, they’re cut off — although we should note that this allowance is per PC, so they can technically game the limit by switching between PCs.
Of course, clever kids can probably work around all these limits, by using fake accounts, by bypassing web restrictions using proxies, by disabling Microsoft logins or using any number of other tricks. Ultimately, you do still have to work with your kids, and trust them at least a little. If you’re entirely adversarial about it, chances are that your kids will figure out ways to work around you.