Adding a childs account to Windows 10
Won't somebody think of the children!
The Internet is a scary place and keeping your child safe online can often be a daunting prospect. Luckily, Windows 10 offers access controls, time limits and activity reports, including reports on the websites, apps and games your child uses. You can set up individual user accounts for each member of the family with their own unique passwords and then tailor the controls and restrictions to the age of your child. It’s relatively easy to set up a user account and then protect and monitor their activity in just a few minutes.
To get started, you need to create Microsoft accounts for your kids, which you then can add to your family at account.microsoft.com/family. Once you’ve added them to your family, you’ll be able to choose the additional limits and permissions you want your kids to have. When your kids sign in with their own accounts, they can personalise their desktop and explore apps and games and in addition, their family settings will be applied to any Windows 10 device they sign into.
To set up a child’s account in Windows 10, open Settings, then Accounts, then click Family and Other Users in the left side panel. From here, you can either add a new family member, which gives you the option to set parental controls on your children’s accounts, or simply add a new user. If you choose ‘Add a family member’, each person you add will need to have their own Microsoft account. (You can create Microsoft accounts from here by clicking the ‘The person who I want to add doesn’t have an email address’ link).
For extra security, you will need to enter a telephone number. This way if you’re ever unable to access the account, i.e. if it is hacked or you forget the password, you can have a code sent to your phone that will let you reset it.
On the next screen, there are options to have Microsoft recommend apps and other such advertising techniques. I would suggest unchecking these boxes. It’s entirely up to you, but considering this is a child’s account, I don’t believe that either of these options are relevant.
Once you’ve set up your additional accounts, the next time you reboot or log off your PC the new users will appear to the bottom-left of the login screen.
With your child’s account added, you can set up and configure their account settings using the Microsoft Family Safety website. We will cover this and How to Use the Parental Controls in Windows 10 in our next article.
