Windows 7 provides built-in parental controls that allow parents to control the programs and games that their child can use along with time restrictions. What is not included in the standard set of controls is the ability to restrict web access and activity reports. Though this feature set is not included Windows 7 it is available in the Windows Live Family Safety which can be added to the Parental Controls.

This article is the first of two on how to download, install and use the Windows Live Family Safety features. The first article is an overview of the software along with instructions on how to download and install on your system. The next article with explain how to setup and use the software.

Family Safety Overview:
Family Safety is comprised of several parts that all work together to create an entire protection package. The individual parts include:

Family Safety Filter:
This is the software that needs to be installed on each computer that you want to monitor your kids’ access.

Family Safety Website:
This is the area where you configure and manage settings for all protected users along with viewing their activity reports. Once the settings are configured they are applied to every computer that uses the Family Safety Filter so you only have to configure the settings once.

Windows Parental Controls:

Parental Controls is a feature that is either turned on when you install Family Safety or it is already active on your computer. The program provides additional safety settings to protect your children or other users.

In order to use the Windows Live Family Safety controls the controls need to be downloaded and installed on your computer. Once the controls are installed they can be added to the standard Parental Controls and applied to each user on the computer. The steps for performing these procedures are listed below.

Download and Install Family Safety:

First check is Family Safety is installed on your computer by going to Start | All Programs | Windows Live Folder and see if Windows Live Family Safety is listed.

If the software is not installed it will need to be downloaded from Microsoft and installed on your computer.  Here are the steps to download and install:

1. Go to Download Software
2. Click on Download now
3. Click on Run
4. Select Choose the programs you want to install (if you do not select the specific program then all Windows Live Essential programs will install)
5. Uncheck all programs except Family Safety and then click on Install
6. At this point the software installation should begin
7. After the installation in complete click on Close

Now that you have downloaded and installed the software the next step will be to setup and configure the access settings. Stay tuned for the next article!