ms family account screen time limits not working

Anonymous
2019-11-03T16:29:00+00:00

Hi

Despite trying all the suggestions I can find online to fix it screen time limits have not been working for months. The limit is set correctly but Windows appears to ignore it. Family activity reporting shows that the activity duration is greater than the limit set.

Thanks

Mik

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Family and online safety

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2020-09-26T00:35:11+00:00

I too had struggled to get this feature to stick properly to one of my three kids. Two were working fine, one not. All identical hardware, so it was highly irritating one was out of alignment to the others. 

Reinstalled the OS on his PC, still no joy. Removed him from family group, tried everything on the suggestions and they all were useless. 

What I noted was that the time limit that I setup was being ignored but there was still a time limit. Instead of 1.5 hours, it was 4 hours per day. No matter what I set it to, it remained. However, if I turned off limits on his account, instantly the setting on his PC was aware that the limits were removed. When I imposed them once more, the same 4 hour limit (rather than the 1.5 hour limit) was turned back on. 

I concluded that in my case, the time limits set on the website were being ignored or overruled by something on the PC. The feature was linked though, reporting functions worked, and clearly when I switched the time limits off, they applied so no issue with the account itself. 

I searched around a bit more, and saw this bit of advice:

Delete the Parental Control Settings in the following path:

  • On the Start screen, type C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Parental Controls and press Enter.

Delete the folder and files under this location. When the user logs in again, it will force a check with the settings stored online and redownload the settings. 

The reason this didn't get fixed when I did a reinstall of the OS was that I kept files/settings and it never got wiped in the OS re-install. 

As soon as I did this, the correct time limit and schedule was finally applied to my son on his PC. No idea why it got stuck, or why it would never overwrite, but it cleared it. Hopefully future adjustments to the time limits and schedule will work as normal from now on.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-03-22T10:55:37+00:00

    I've had a ticket open with Microsoft for months now but they seem unable to fix it and are now ignoring me.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-03-21T12:05:38+00:00

    For the benefit of others I had exactly the same problem and added a specific app time limit for outlook and this was respected by the win 10 PC. The app limits is a preview feature so maybe this has caused a bug in whole of machine time limits?

    https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2092334

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-03-14T19:34:40+00:00

    Whst are you talking about? MS Windows is only on PC.  If you are using Parallels or Dual Booting to get Windows on a Mac you are still running on Windows, so their 

    solutions do apply to you.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-03-14T16:15:41+00:00

    Hi

    I'm on a Mac in my Windows online account via a browser trying to fix my son's screen time limits which haven't been working for a few months. The fix mentioned in various links refers to PC users and Windows 10 so doesn't apply to Mac users! Microsoft rarely acknowledged the existence of Mac users and when they do they provided sub-standard solutions.

    I can't find any support for Mac users. I'm pretty angry about the situation. Microsoft talk a good game about protecting children but when it comes down to it they fail to deliver.

    Trying to get hold of someone at Microsoft is also nearly impossible - it can take days.

    Hey ho, rant over.

    A

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