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
    2020-08-25T19:32:45+00:00

    Just checking in....has this ever been solved?

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-08T05:18:06+00:00

    What are the 3 computers? Maybe it's a hardware thing. Wonder what kind of computer others are having success or problems with

    All my older computers work fine. For my two kids.

    Thinkpad x200t

    Surface Pro 3

    Surface 3

    Newest one is a Lenovo Miix630 and that one doesn't care about limits. 

    I also have a Lenovo Helix with a bad screen lying around I should boot back up and try family settings on

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-01T02:03:15+00:00

    I have the same issue.  Been having trouble for months.  I have 3 computers each running Windows 10.  Time limits work on 1, not on the other two, which means I have kids getting up in the middle of the night playing Minecraft and then being totally worthless the next day.  This is a big problem.

    Accounts sync'd, and sync'd again.  At this point I'd rather not have the computers in my house.  It's far more trouble dealing with the inability to properly control time limits for kids.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-06-25T17:44:16+00:00

    In my case it was some malware

    SAntivirus

    that was interfearing with the timer.

    Now every child reading this knows what to do.

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