User Accounts and parental controls

[Sub Styler]

Existing user accounts that appear on the login screen and all work do not appear in the parental controls list.

I have 1 admin and 2 users all password protected.

True admin account and guest account are disabled.

The only account that shows up in parental controls is the guest account.

I have tried SFC, setting the profile location manually in advanced user control etc.

Not sure if there should be something in the registry here but when i navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Parental Controls\Users the only key is (Default) (value not set)

I really would like to get this working as my son is really getting into the computer now and I dont want to keep sitting over his shoulder .

 

[Neutron16]

Parental Controls could be applied only to a standard user.

In the middle of Parental Controls window there is an option "Create a new user account". As experiment try to create an account with this option, will it show up in the list?

 

[Sub Styler]

tested

I tried that feature using the existing account names and obviously recieved an error code indicating the accounts already exist.

Yes when i create a new user "tommytest" they do appear in the list.

The only thing is the user profiles (that dont appear) have already been configured to the users needs/preferences. I'd rather not have to do that again but I might have to resort to that.

I hope this helps with diagnosis.

 

[Brink]

Hello Sub Styler,

If you like, you could use the tutorial below to help change the user account that you want to have Parental Controls applied to from an "administrator" account to a "Standard user" account without changing all of their personal settings. Afterwards, it will be listed in Parental Controls to select.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/103538-user-account-type-change.html

Be sure that you always have at least one administrator account on your computer though.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Sub Styler]

Nearly, but not quite

Cheers Brink....

but

The accounts in question are standard accounts already, it's just they dont have tiles in the parental controls window. I know how to change them to admin and back again, but I thank you for your input none the less.

 

[Sub Styler]

Update, I dont know what I've done this time but when I log in i get a ballooon message along the lines of:

User Accounts - There was a problem loading your roaming profile, your previously saved local profile has been loaded instead"

 

[Neutron16]

Sub Styler, please post screenshots of
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Parental Controls\Users

and
HKEY_USERS\

 

[Sub Styler]

Ok here are the SS' I am concerned that these characters arent showing under user either (although the accounts do still work)





P.S. since creating the test account 1 user now appears in parental controls (guessing thats him).

Also checked the \ProfileList to investigate my new warning message and found



The key Central Profile pointing to a profile path the same as my except with a .v2 suffix,

Is this normal or a possible cause/symptom

 

[Neutron16]

I am not sure what caused "V2" thing at this point, but you can try to play with registry.

I am assuming that one of the these two profiles are those users ones you want to control

S-1-5-21-126477359-1262390946-2612721264-1004
or
S-1-5-21-126477359-1262390946-2612721264-1005

So try to rename whatever you have in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Parental Controls\Users
I guess that would be
S-1-5-21-126477359-1262390946-2612721264-1007
into

S-1-5-21-126477359-1262390946-2612721264-1004
or
S-1-5-21-126477359-1262390946-2612721264-1005

 

[Sub Styler]

Thank you I have tried renaming SID registry key above, also exporting it, and copying it in a text editor then merging that back into the registry so I have all 3 SIDs showing with the same values as the 1007 account (the one that does show up in parental controls) but still this is the only one that shows up. Also having been into the standard user accounts has caused them to have a "v2 central profile" aswell (except the new test account).

I'm thinking at this point just create new accounts for these users. It's looking like the obvious way forward if the root cause is being so elusive. I'm gonna plow through the event log later when the kids are in bed.

Any other suggestion would be great.

 

[Neutron16]

You can try to convert those users accounts to admins and then back. May be even login with them in between.

Also, you can set desired settings for that new working account and copy actual settings (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Parental Controls\Users) from new account to those two old accounts.

 

[Sub Styler]

Already tried the admin and back idea. Thank you for your help but i've given up, beside it will be a good chance for me to check they are set up properly per user anyway.

 

[Sub Styler]

UPDATE: created new accounts and configured them, they were showing in parental controls untill I was ready to set the parental controls and now they are not. I dont know if it's because I changed them from users to admins and then back to users or what.

I have got the accounts back on local profile (including my own) so no errors of that sort anymore.

Here are some screen shots from the control panel and the registry.









Any ideas where the Parental Controls panel sources it's user list? I'm stumped.

 

[Neutron16]

May be it is just a glitch in the front end of Parent Control?
But actual enforcing will still work?

You can set desired settings for guest account and copy actual settings (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Parental Controls\Users) from guest account to those two desired accounts.
Just a suggestion.

As alternative, Kaspersky Internet Security has extensive Parental Control.
It has Computer usage times, Application usage, Internet usage, Web browsing categories, File type downloads, Instant Messaging, Social Networking, you can even block private data, so kinds would not send anyone addresses, credit card numbers, phone numbers and even control WORD usage for messaging and emails ))

 

[Sub Styler]

Yes thats an option but I was mainly looking to use the windows live family safety features over the actual parental controls setting within windows. Which is recieving the same useless user information as parental controls.

Yes the internet security suites do offer a good selection of features, whether kasperky, zonelabs or even the dreaded norton.

I havent renewed in ages and have just unintalled and am relying on the overrated free avg protection.

 

[dkyeager]

A special accounts userlist entry under winlogon will cause this behavior in parental controls. It does not matter whether it is set to 0 or 1.

Instructions

1) close parental controls

2) Remove the account's entry from the winlogon user list with regedit. The entry is located here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList

detailed information here: User Account - Hide

3) reopen parental controls and the account will reappear.