Use Windows Live OneCare Family Safety to help protect your family online

Published: August 14, 2007
Windows Live OneCare Family Safety. Protect your kids.

As a parent, you want to help make your family's experiences safer and more secure, and you want to provide good guidance. Windows Live OneCare Family Safety can help.

OneCare Family Safety is a Web service that's free to people who use Microsoft Windows XP.

Note: If you use Windows Vista—the operating system installed on many new computers—you can use the built-in family safety tools.

Use OneCare Family Safety to:

•

Configure safer Web browsing and searching, with content and communication filters that you can personalize for each family member, according to your values and their ages.

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Supervise your kids’ activities from any computer, using Web-based reports that show what your kids are doing online. You can grant or deny requests to view certain Web sites, even when you are not home.

Step 1: Get Windows Live IDs for your family

To help ensure family safety with Windows Vista, first you turn on the Parental Controls feature for your child's account, and then you adjust Web restrictions, time limits, game ratings, and program limits for the account.

If you and your family already have Windows Live IDs, you can skip to the section below, Step 2: Install Family Safety on your computer.

To set up standard user accounts and get Windows Live IDs:

1.

Go to onecare.live.com/familysafety.

2.

Click New User.

3.

Click the option button next to I need to create a Windows Live ID and then click Next.

4.

Fill out the Windows Live ID form for yourself and then click I accept.

5.

Your Windows Live ID account is set up as the Family Safety Administrator, with the rights to set up and maintain Family Safety Settings.

6.

Go back to the Family Safety Setting Manager and then click Add child.

7.

Select Create Child ID if you need to create a Windows Live ID for your child.

8.

In the Windows Live ID form, enter your child's profile information, age, the e-mail address you want him or her to have, and a password.

9.

You can also add a child account for an existing Windows Live ID. Click Add Child and click Child has ID. Sign in with the Windows Live ID that you want to add.

After you install OneCare Family Safety, your computer will only provide Internet access to the people you've added to Family Safety. You can always add more people later.

Step 2: Install Family Safety on your computer

You must install Family Safety software on each computer where you want to use Family Safety settings.

To install Family Safety:

1.

When you finish adding child accounts, click Next to install Family Safety software on your computer.

2.

To install the software, select a language from the drop-down list, and then click Install.

3.

After you install the Family Safety software, you'll need to set it up for your family. Go back to the Family Safety home page and sign in with the Windows Live ID for your administrator account.

4.

You need to create a new password for the Family Safety software. Make sure this password is different than the password for your Windows Live account.

Family Safety software is now installed and configured on your computer.

You can tell that Family Safety is running by the icon () that appears in the lower-right-hand side of your screen, where the time and some other icons appear. (This is called the "notification area" on your computer).

Click this icon any time you want to open your Family Safety screen to check or change your settings.

Help prevent your child from changing settings

Always sign out of the Family Safety Web site when you've finished using it. If you don't, users who sign in to the Family Safety software on the same computer will be able to change their own safety settings.

Never share your Windows Live ID password or your Family Safety password with your kids, because those passwords protect your Family Safety settings.

Step 3: Customize your Family Safety settings

When you log in to the Family Safety home page, you can customize settings for each account, check activity reports, and monitor request from your children to view certain Web pages or to download files.

Only you and the people you designate as administrators can perform these functions or add family members.

On the Family Safety home page, select Settings Manager and then click Edit Settings next to the account where you want to do any of the following:

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Set content filters

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Customize settings

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Create allow/block lists

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Turn on activity monitoring

Step 4: Filter Web content

With Family Safety you can filter Web content based on pre-set filtering levels or with customizable options.

You can choose from specific categories to limit access to inappropriate Web content.

Use Family Safety Categories to select Web content to block, allow, or warn your kids about.

Besides allowing and blocking content, you can set Family Safety to warn your kids when they try to view certain types of content.

You can also block or allow specific Web pages and domains.

Step 5: See reports about where your child went on the Web

By default, Family Safety monitors activity on child accounts. On the Family Safety home page you and other administrators can view activity reports and monitor user requests.

Here are a few things you can see:

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Click Activity reports on the main screen to see what your children have been doing online. If your child tries to view a blocked Web site, the Family Safety page shows which site was blocked.

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Click User requests to see if your child has requested permission to view any Web sites.


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Related Links
•Windows Vista
•Internet Explorer 7: New features for security
•2007 Microsoft Office System: New Security Features
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