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

Hello NJHUK,

I think there are a couple of ways to address your concern. 

1. There's a chance that you've been changing settings in the wrong profile on account.microsoft.com/family.
2. The settings that do apply to your daughter's tablet may not be correctly set

Here's why:

Previously, when you logged into familysafety.microsoft.com, you had a single line item for your child, and because you used Windows 8.1, that single entry also showed the MSA that was associated with her.   It was a shared "view", but the initial setup was very manual and had to be done on each PC and the settings didn't roam.  After the account unlinking this spring, the MSA entry that shows for your daughter has the message about logging into a Windows 10 or Windows Phone device, and the changes you make in that profile aren't getting pushed to her tablet (simply because it's not (yet) running Windows 10).

So let's start by making sure you're using the right profile:

On account.microsoft.com/family, look for the entry that shows her name and the tablet name and select it (i.e. not the entry that shows her MSA).  

NOTE: If your daughter's tablet name doesn't show on the family page at all, you'll need to check to see if your daughter's account type on her tablet (PC settings/Accounts/Other Users) is set to something other than "child".  If it shows as a standard user, please set it to child.  If it happens to show as an administrator, or if it's the only account on the device, you'll need to add an adult's account as an administrator, and then change her account type to child.  Once her account type is set correctly, click the "manage family safety settings online" link in the same window.

Once you've verified that you've got the right profile:

Navigate through every settings page that shows on the left side of the page and make sure they're set how you expect them to be.   I was surprised that on one of my PC's I hadn't set the "block inappropriate web sites" setting correctly, and it was toggled to off.   Also, be sure to scroll down on each page - there may be settings that show underneath.   

In terms of kids' ability to get to content they have no business seeing/hearing, as long as the web filtering is set to on, then InPrivate browsing is disabled and SafeSearch is set to on by default.  Those are things that really help me.  Then if anything sneaks through, I also block individual websites.  As for websites like YouTube, so much of that isn't rated at all, but I've used the kids safety setting on the website to help filter out what I can.

If they are using this to try and force everyone to upgrade to Windows 10 then frankly that is disgraceful, and even so then they should at least freaking wait until Windows 10 is available and give some warning.

Causing family safety stop working on kids devices without no warning or explanation is incompetent and reprehensible.

Jen,

all complaints about usability is one thing but for me it is far more serious. I have tried to add my child's outlook.live login to the 'new' family safety and now when I look at the family safety settings it tells me:

After ******@outlook.com signs in to a Windows Phone or Windows 10 device, it'll show up here.

the statement you point to says this:

When kids are added to a Microsoft family with a Microsoft account, any time they sign in to a Windows 10 device.....

My daughters tablet is windows 8.1. When she logs in with her Microsoft account no settings are applied, she can run any app, browse any webpage and view any YouTube video. 

Until windows 10 is available, how on earth do I lock down her account on her tablet. Or do I tell her that Microsoft broke the system so she is not allowed to use her computer anymore?

I'm serious, I'd rather manage 10 profiles on 10 devices than have no protection at all, do I assume that new additions to family safety will not have security settings applied on versions of windows earlier than 10?!?

Dear Microsoft hard workers.  I know you are passionate about your work.  We beg you to pause and listen to your customers on this one.  Usually the debate is even balanced, but have you found any comments *anywhere* that praise these changes?

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.