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

It is clear to me that the next three phones we buy will not be windows phone.  We just ordered my daughter's iphone from a windows phone and my wife and I are on our second wp device.  Our next upgrade will not be a windows phone.  We had been looking at a Surface 3, now there is no way.  This experience has undermined any trust I had in Microsoft.  Microsoft sold me on family safety and the one windows experience, takes my money and then changes a critical feature to have none of the functionality that my family relies on.  It must be remembered that the FAQ page appeared several weeks, if not months after the functionality was stripped.  The change happened without notice or warning, leaving our children vulnerable.  This is not only "less than ideal", it is criminal. 

There is a whole thread of equally furious and disappointed individuals at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_other-security/why-is-there-now-a-separate-account-for-each/9ce896b7-e181-45d5-bca1-03610f6cd920?page=9&msgId=4b78aa57-2944-4a56-9ca2-adeefcffafef

Everyone, I don't know if you have noticed, but the last two weeks brought additional "simplifications".  Go check it out.  The web filter is now "simplified" such that you no longer have to even select the level of filtering.  It is magically now either on or off.  Before, we had to suffer through telling the software if we wanted the filtering to be at kid level or teenager level, but no longer.  All the kids, 4 yrs old or 15, are either filtered or not.  Perhaps next week we will get further simplifications such that we don't even get to select manually which sites are filtered.

Alright, sorry for the sarcasm.  This is now beyond ridiculous.  Please help me bring some accountability to this team and submit the story to news channels below?  I just copied pasted the same tip to each of the URLs below.  Maybe if enough of us do it, it will work?

-NBC: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40220716/#.VYhwq8fQMUE

-NBC Nightly News: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29104230/ns/nbc\_nightly\_news\_with\_brian\_williams/t/contact-us/#.VYhxGMfQMUE

-Today: http://www.today.com/id/10285339/ns/today/t/contact-nbc-news/

-CNN: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form11b.html?1

-CNN2: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/tips/

-CBS: http://www.cbs.com/feedback/

-FOX: http://help.foxnews.com/entries/500736-Where-can-I-send-story-questions-corrections-or-news-tips-

-FOX2: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/10/14/contact-us.html

-FOX3: http://help.foxnews.com/entries/500745-Does-FoxNews-com-have-a-news-hotline-

-ABC: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Swimming/mailform?id=10294723

-ABC2: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/mailform?id=10691207

-ABC3: http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page/contact-abcnewscom-3068843

Everyone, I don't know if you have noticed, but the last two weeks brought additional "simplifications".  Go check it out.  The web filter is now "simplified" such that you no longer have to even select the level of filtering.  It is magically now either on or off.  Before, we had to suffer through telling the software if we wanted the filtering to be at kid level or teenager level, but no longer.  All the kids, 4 yrs old or 15, are either filtered or not.  Perhaps next week we will get further simplifications such that we don't even get to select manually which sites are filtered.

But its so much easier! One tick box vs 10 is a better user experience...

I know what your saying whats worse is remember that neat little tickbox that prevented downloads?

Well its gone now too, and I left my son on his pc while i did house work the other day.

Came back to him playing flash games on sites that where not suitable for his maturity (due to special needs),

about 14 downloads and goodness knows what else.

Now i have changed his windows password and I sit and watch him...

I'm worried he wanders onto one of those 'non adult but not a kids' sites or downloads some form of cryptoware and ends up wreaking not just his PC but all the PC's in the house...

Its fair to say that the new FS software has really made it useless, if MS are looking to free up a few bucks to work on some other project they certainly found a way to push users off this one...

More than just a few people are annoyed at this (see and the may other threads on this section alone), please revert the software its not fit for purpose any more...

Indeed. Sitting with your child when they use the PC if they are young is all well and good and we would all love to do that, and I have had some arsey comments from a couple of people that I should be doing this all the time or I am a bad parent.

When you have 1 kid then yes, but when you have 4 kids, this simply is not possible, as they all want to be on their computers at the same time, or they all want attention at the same time, and I simply do not have enough time to do this for each of them in turn, and it is extremely hard to sit ona  computer with one when you have the others moaning at you, nor do I have anywhere to have all computers in the same room, otherwise I would make sure they are supervised.

The worse thing is that even when you do have all possible dodgy content block, they still manage to find bad stuff. Such as youtube, my kids mainly watch minecraft videos all day, but some of the people who post these videos swear like hell and say many inappropriate things for kids.

I do not like the change they have made where I can now only say 1 time per day where they can use the computer, however I can live with it as I tend to limit mine by setting it ALL hours of the day but saying they have no time by default. And then I give them hours when they do homework, or chores or extra learning. It is amazing how little time they spend on the computer when they have to work for it.

It does seem as though they are slowly adding more features, it looks like windows phone has now finally been added.

Exactly, im lucky i have one but there are many who on here have 3-4 and the old use between 9 and 5 and oy for xhours and y mins was a way to control usage.

I used it for my son.

He soon learnt to limit his screen time.

Even started not using it all, spaced it out.

I can imagine in your case it allowed fair usage too.

Each gets an hour for arguments sake, i imagine they soon learnt to share the pc.