Family safety: Feedback on recent changes to multi-device management

Anonymous
2015-04-22T12:54:35+00:00

Put simply, it's unacceptable.

For my child, why would I want to have to manage completely different sets of limits, curfew, blocked/allowed games, allowed ratings, etc for every device to which they log in?

This needs to go back to the old way where the child's account spanned all devices to which they've logged in.

Furthermore, when attempting to manage this new format, here's what I see in my Family Safety area:

How is this helpful at all? Nowhere on this screen do I know the device for which I'm altering the settings. If I click another instance of my child's name, I have no idea which device that is going to either.

I also have a sneaking suspicion this recent change is what is causing so many parents to have settings not taking effect, etc. They're probably altering the settings for the wrong device (because they have no clue where they're at in the system and I don't blame them) or the backend is simply doing things wrong.

Please fix this.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Security and privacy

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-01T10:08:54+00:00

    As a fellow mom homeschool mom to a special needs kiddo, I get it. It's a shame no one on the Team has the same issue.

    iit worked well, it prevented arguments because it just worked. I was getting ready to move all gaming to another kid account with different hours, separate from the school. 

    "They" keep spouting all these features we had before, I swear they must not have ever used it. Like almost instead of migrating what they needed too - they started from scratch. 

    Time to try the paid option, I need something that works, and this does not.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-07-01T10:18:09+00:00

    Perservere, I am sure it can work. For now, ignore the entry in family safety regarding the windows 10 device (unless you have any, of course). Concentrate on the other one. When I checked the individual account on the named device, despite it saying it was a local account when it is an MS one, the account type was indeed set to standard, not child. I had to log in to her tablet with an admin account in order to change hers to a childs. I then had to set all her permissions as new, as the defaults in family safety for her account on that device were all set to no restriction.

    The full process I went through to resolve it:

    1. remove all entries in family safety that refer to her account - any device
    2. log into the device with her account and go to account settings and unlink the account from MS, it will ask you to set up the account as a local account with new password. go through the motions
    3. add her MS email to the family safety again, you will see just one entry referring to the 'when the user logs into a windows 10 PC' message and an acceptance email will go to her mailbox
    4. logged in as her 'local' account, open mail - it wil ask you to link to an MS account to enable the mail app
    5. once you have linked the account again, click the accept link in the family safety invite mail
    6. log out of her account and back in as an admin for her device
    7. go to account settings and change her acocunt type from standard to child
    8. you *should* then see a second entry in family saftey with her account linked to that device (described as 'local' account, even though it isnt)
    9. the settings associated with her account on that device will all default to no restirctions, so you will have to go in and apply your desired setup
    10. log in to her device and hopefully you will get he message box 'this account is being monitored'

    I really do hope you can get it fixed, I didnt resolve this until 3am this morning, but it was worth it to see her face when I said I was able to sort out her tablet and she could have it back again!!

    if it doesnt work, feel free to msg back and I can see if I can replicate the process on a second tablet I have.

    Nick.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-07-01T16:42:47+00:00

    I wasn't asked, but as a homeschool mom - well, the flexibility was needed to schedule the day.

    It was one of the things that drove my purchase of MORE Windows products after the first one (I'm a fruit user).

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-07-01T16:46:24+00:00

    I was dreading doing all of these steps again (had to do them on one of our Venue tablets once before).

    Alas, much to my DELIGHT, the hard drive died overnight in my daughters 2-in-1 and apparently Dell will be overnighting me a replacement. The best part was I didn't even have to call them - just enter the code their diagnostics gave me and they are sending it. 

    How is that for a great solution??? I get to start fresh!

    (and wonder what she lost that wasn't on her OneDrive... and install all her school software again.... sigh.... oh and since the tablet is new, I had not gotten around to making the restore media disks - just saw that prompt yesterday on my way out the door

    • this isn't going to go well.....)

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-07-01T17:35:07+00:00

    Dozens of parents have posted many dozens of posts in these forums explaining their needs. The grid is needed, the ability to manage each child's settings in one place, not one place for each device they use, etc. No, I do not feel the simplified design is any kind of improvement. They took away good functionality and replaced it with a system that their users simply do not like or want.

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