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

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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
    2020-05-14T04:15:43+00:00

    It's weird, I just setup my surface pro 3 to have family access for my kid. I never let them on it before

    Screen limits worked as expected. 

    I have it working fine on a windows pro s mode (very old thinkpad), windows home (surface 3) and now my surface pro 3 (windows pro ) 

    It's not working on my ARM base miix630 with windows pro smode. Think I'll try to fully refresh this tablet and remove it completely from my account devices and try setting it all up again

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-05-22T02:16:10+00:00

    I have been trying to get this to work for well over 2 years. Started with MS support who stopped reply after we tried numerous fixes that didn’t work.... 

    For me its just my oldest child’s profile that causes issues, with the younger two children it works just fine 95% of the time on PC (Win10) or xbox.

    I believe the issue lies in the profile as it has carried across from our home desktop to his school laptop. Lately the new app control feature works so i can limit time on specific apps but he can still log in whenever he wants (other than me physically locking the device in my home office.... which becomes tedious).

    I have tried several third party software solutions which worked well for time restrictions but they all caused other issues, especially with the school wifi access. Mostly it was the ports that the parental software was using were blocked by the school. The school IT dept would not open the specific ports In their filter software to allow the app to work.

    While I highly respect Bill Gate’s philanthropy and solving world health issues, he needs to focus back on this software business and fix this long running systemic issue in the family app given he is such a big advocate of family cyber safety and use of tech, especially with his own family. It all started when the controls became online based, it worked fine when it was a local PC control.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-05-22T06:23:45+00:00

    Since the lastest software update went on this is all working again for me.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-06-04T00:42:14+00:00

    Tried update, removing/adding back, restarting, changing password, etc. Nothing works.

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