Applies to these editions of Windows 7

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Looking for web filtering and activity reports in Windows Parental Controls?

You might have noticed that in Windows 7, web restrictions and activity reports aren’t included in Parental Controls. You can still restrict the sites your kids can visit and see reports of their online activity by adding a service provider in Windows Parental Controls, such as Windows Live Family Safety. With Family Safety, you can set up web filtering and activity monitoring for your kids.

Family Safety Filter

The Family Safety Filter monitors your child’s computer activity and filters the content they can see on the web. It needs to be installed and set up on each computer your children use. To see if you already have the Family Safety Filter installed on your computer, click the Start button, type Windows Live Family Safety in the search box, and see if it appears in the results. If not, you can download and install Windows Live Family Safety—a part of Windows Essentials—for free.

Picture of screen where you choose Windows accounts to monitor In the Family Safety Filter, you choose which Windows accounts you want to monitor.
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Windows Live Family Safety website

Once you’ve installed the Family Safety Filter, you can use the Family Safety website to do the following, and more:

  • Get detailed activity reports. See what websites each of your kids visited (or tried to visit), what programs they used, and how much time they spent on the computer.

    Picture of an activity reportSee what websites your kids visited, or tried to visit.
  • Choose your children’s web filtering level. When you first set up the Family Safety Filter, your child's web filtering level is automatically set to basic. You can change it to strict or custom, and block or allow specific webpages or websites.
    Picture of the screen kids see when a website is blockedInstead of a website with inappropriate content, your child will see this webpage where they can ask permission to see the website.
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For more information about Family Safety and all of the programs in Windows Essentials, go to the Windows Essentials website . Or visit the Parental Controls feature page to learn more about Windows 7 Parental Controls.