How to enable parental control in specific user account in Windows 7?

Question

I have my laptop used by my room mates, I have a user account and everyone knows the password for the same. I don't want to put parental controls on my user account and want to create a room mate specific user account and set parental controls for specific things as below:

1. No Access to specific drive/ folder in the drive.
2. A installed software in my login available/non-available to other login
3. Limited usage of internet sites(I guess thats to be done in browser)

Just needed that much, :P hope no one gets mad on me. I tried to solve issue by my own but was unsuccessful in 2nd part. :(

Answer 1

Before we start you need to create a standard user account for your room mates.

How to create user account in Windows 7:

Open Control Panel > Go to User Accounts and Family Safety > click on the Add or remove user accounts > click Create a new account > Enter the User name and make sure you select the account type as 'Standard'.

No Access to specific drive/ folder in the drive.

You can do this by taking ownership and full control of the files and folders in Windows. To take a ownership of the folder/file, Right Click the File/Folder > Go to security Tab > Add your user account and remove the other login id that you don't wish grant acccess.

More detailed instructions and steps to take ownership and full control of file/folders are provided here.

A installed software in my login available/non-available to other login

The built in Windows 7 parental controls feature can control which installed program can be run by the standard users.

1. Open Parental Controls by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, and then, under User Accounts and Family Safety, clicking Set up parental controls for any user.‌ If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
2. Click the name of the person you want to prevent from using specific programs.
3. Under Parental Controls, click On, enforce current settings.
4. Click Block specific programs.
5. Click Person's name‌ can only use the programs I allow.
6. Select the programs that you want to allow. If the program you want doesn't appear in the list, click Browse to locate the program.

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Limited usage of internet sites(I guess thats to be done in browser)

As far as I know Windows 7 doesn't have built in web filtering but you can install the Windows Live Family Safety which is a free application from Microsoft.

Web filtering using Windows Live Family Safety:

If you want to pick your own categories instead of using the preset levels, you can choose Custom. You’ll see a list of all the categories, and then you can choose what’s right for your kids. Under Web filtering, you can also make a list of blocked websites or allowed websites that will override the categories and filtering levels.

Here's how to customize web filtering

1. Click Web filtering, make sure Turn on web filtering is selected, and then select a web filtering level:
2. Select Strict to block all websites that aren't child friendly or on the allow list.
3. Select Basic to allow websites except those with adult content and anonymizer websites.
4. Select Custom to allow and block website categories manually. To allow a website category, select it. To block a website category, clear its check box.
5. Click Save.

Here's how to allow or block a website

1. Under Allow or block a website, type or paste into the box the web address of the website that you want to allow or block.

2. Select an option from the list, click Add, and then click Allow or Block. Click Save.

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