Vista - Missing feature from parental controls

Well, I needed to reformat my computer since it had been acting up for a
while and I hadn't done it in almost a year. It's really nice to have a nice,
clean system, for as long as it lasts of course. While I was at it, I went
ahead and setup a dual boot with Windows Vista RC1. I wanted to play around
with it a little and learn my way around before I purchase in the spring and
I have to say I've been pleased so far. I really like what I've seen of the
interface but I haven't tried any of my games or apps yet so we'll see how
that goes later.

Anyway, I setup accounts for my four kids and went to checkout one of my
most anxiously anticipated features: parental controls. While I'm pleased for
the most part, I do see one thing that I feel is missing from the time
limits. While I do like limiting the hours that my kids can be on the
computer, I also limit the amount of time they are allowed to use the
computer each day. While parental controls takes care of the "hours of use"
issue, it does nothing to limit the amount of time each account can use the
computer each day. I realize that these controls can't take over my parenting
responsibility for me but for this feature to have gone so far and, as I see
it, stop just short of what I needed, almost seems a tragedy. Of course, I'm
certain there are plenty of other people out there that have some other
feature that they feel is missing and Microsoft can't give us everything but
this really seems to me to be almost basic funtionality for parental controls.

What's everyone else think? Opinions?

Maybe this is something they can a later, maybe in SP1 or something. If
anyone from Microsoft is listening out there, please take notes and consider
this a strongly requested feature. Thanks for listening.

Sincerely,
- Byron Followell

You could go to downloads.com and search for "parental controls computer
usage time" and theres a few options, "Crawler Parental Control" looks like
it will do what you want...sucks for you that this isn't included with Vista.

One of the features I think might help for Parental Controls is for the
Admin or the Parent to associate the D.O.B. to each childs account, that way
websites can take advantage of blocking content automatically. A built-in
feature like that would make it hard for kids to end up chatting with someone
in sex rooms, or to browse sex sites...provided the sites support that
built-in feature. It might save those sites from being sued for not
protecting children online like what happened with Myspace
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/20/myspace_sued/), plus protect the
children. This feature could easily be added in future OS service packs as
well.


--
esu lanoisseforp


"Byron Followell" wrote:

> Well, I needed to reformat my computer since it had been acting up for a
> while and I hadn't done it in almost a year. It's really nice to have a nice,
> clean system, for as long as it lasts of course. While I was at it, I went
> ahead and setup a dual boot with Windows Vista RC1. I wanted to play around
> with it a little and learn my way around before I purchase in the spring and
> I have to say I've been pleased so far. I really like what I've seen of the
> interface but I haven't tried any of my games or apps yet so we'll see how
> that goes later.
>
> Anyway, I setup accounts for my four kids and went to checkout one of my
> most anxiously anticipated features: parental controls. While I'm pleased for
> the most part, I do see one thing that I feel is missing from the time
> limits. While I do like limiting the hours that my kids can be on the
> computer, I also limit the amount of time they are allowed to use the
> computer each day. While parental controls takes care of the "hours of use"
> issue, it does nothing to limit the amount of time each account can use the
> computer each day. I realize that these controls can't take over my parenting
> responsibility for me but for this feature to have gone so far and, as I see
> it, stop just short of what I needed, almost seems a tragedy. Of course, I'm
> certain there are plenty of other people out there that have some other
> feature that they feel is missing and Microsoft can't give us everything but
> this really seems to me to be almost basic funtionality for parental controls.
>
> What's everyone else think? Opinions?
>
> Maybe this is something they can a later, maybe in SP1 or something. If
> anyone from Microsoft is listening out there, please take notes and consider
> this a strongly requested feature. Thanks for listening.
>
> Sincerely,
> - Byron Followell
>