Multiple users on same computer brings in a lot issue for Administrator user though it’s a fun for rest of the people. Admin/ Parents not only needs to make sure the computer is safe so the files are in place but also educate him or her about using a strong password and keep up a good policy for it for example. Below are few more guides Administrators can read to get effective control on Windows 7 users. I wish there was something as User Profile Creation feature in Windows 7, Hope it comes in Windows 8 may be.

• Control who can change theme ?
• Manage Games in Windows 7
• Set time limit for Kids in Windows 7
• And Setting up and Effective Parental Control

Parental Control in Windows 7 alone is good enough but if you want to expand it a lot by using more controls which gives you access to Web Filtering and Activity Report which helps you manage your kids activity. One of such control is, Windows Live  Family Safety which brings the combo of all the above.

First get the Windows Live Family Safety and  then go to Parental Control > and select this as a provider. Now select any account on which you want to apply parental control.  Windows Live Family Safety service uses your Windows Live Account to control everything right from web page access to games control. You can read more about it here. Since this goes online it becomes easier to control for you online any where any time.

So we have two parts, First You configure it on your computer and second part which lets you configure online. The only drawback if you would feel is the use of Windows Live ID every where which even if you don’t use as your primary online identity is good to have just for this.

Configuring Windows Live Family Safety on your Computer

• This step will launch Windows Live Family Service  where you will need to sign in using your Windows Live Id.
• Next it displays all the users account that you want to manage. Select one or more and click next.
• Now here you have Mentor student kind of setting. So for each user you can have one mentor set.
• Done this you will get a final window which gives you web link where you can manage all the web filtering and reporting stuff.

Managing Computer User accounts online :

Once everything is set on your computer, you can go to familysafety.live.com any time to manage the computers and users added to your account. Yes you can have multiple computers with any number of users.

Here you can check out the activity report for each user and check if any request is made.  The request is sent generally when user tries to visit a page but the page might be under filter. Here he or she gets an option to send request to his mentor for white listing it. Since its online, the filter can be configured even if the parents are at office.

Now if you can configure each of your kids account using Windows Live activity everything can be managed which is essentially a drawback of this whole system but is definitely cost-effective and most of the things can be managed. However there are situations where you need to do without being restricted to a particular software which we will take a look in next post of our series Guide to Manage Windows user accounts.

Related posts:

1. How to setup Parental Control in Windows 7
2. Managing the Control Panel in Windows 7
3. Windows Control Panel made easy
4. Control Everything of Windows from Command Line : Wizmo
5. Windows 7 God mode gets you all control panel items on one place