Hi all, I am looking for a program to limit the time my kids spend on the computer. I even would pay money for a tool, that allows my children - lets say.. to be 10 hours a week on the computer and to partitionize their time per day themselves. This would be the best, but a solution, that limits the time per day would be greatly appreciated, too. To specify the problem: I do not want my kids to be allowed from 5pm to 6pm. They shall decide when they use their time, e.g. at 1pm or at 6pm. At the Moment I am using Windows XP, but I will buy Vista or Windows 7 if these systems can help me. Greetings from Germany Nils

Hi Nils, I'd like to inform you that Windows SteadyState does not include the function to limit time per day. However, in Windows Vista or Windows 7 you can use parental control to achieve this. You can check the following link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Set-up-Parental-Controlshttp://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/parental-controls.aspxHope this helps!Sean Zhu - MSFT

Hi Sean. I'm looking to do the same thing as Nils. I checked out the links you provided but Windows 7 does NOT appear to offer what he and I are looking for. While you can schedule access times for a user, you cannot limit the number of hours within that schedule for the user: so, for example, I want to allow my child to access the computer anytime between 3pm and 5pm, but only for 45 minutes. This is a very basic parental control requirement that should be easily possible on windows 7 which boasts such good parent controls. Thanks for your help. ConcernedParent

I am also for looking for the possibility to limit the amount of computer usage per day while allowing to choose when to use it. I was extremely disappointed when I just found out that Windows 7 does not allow for such a simple rule like "2 hours per day between 12.00 and 20.00". On my way to find a suitable software elsewhere... Georg

Thanks for adding your voice, Georg. I think there are many other parents out there expecting to see this functionality. Being able to set limits on a child's daily hours of use within a set access schedule is a no brainer. What a shame that Win7 can't handle such basic controls within the parental controls they already have. Moderator Sean Zhu, do you have any suggestions for Georg, Nils and me? Does MS have any plans to add this basic functionality?

I was amazed to find a simple time limit could not be set per user in Windows 7 parent control. Come on MS, wake up and smell the coffee. This is available in just about ever other product including Gnome Nanny for Linux. At great expense we purchased Windows 7 so we don't want to have to go buying extra addons for basic functionality that should have been there in the first place. It’s unbelievable how this wasn't picked up from the beta program.