Where did my Vista Parental Controls go?

Parental Controls on Windows Vista are a great way to take charge of how your kiddoes use the computer.  You can restrict time limitations, the ratings of games they are allowed to play, block or allow specific programs, block or allow specific websites, and get activity reports on what they have been up to.  While it might be nice to watch over their shoulder at all times, it is nice to allow Vista to help enforce some of the rules you have laid out.  There is a great write-up on the capabilities at the UAC Blog.

You may have noticed, however, that Parental Controls might be missing from the Control Panel where it lives:

control panel

Windows Vista Parental Controls are a consumer-oriented technology, so if you are running Windows Vista Enterprise or Business, this is expected behavior.  If you are using Windows Vista Ultimate, however, you will also encounter this behavior if your computer is joined to a domain.

https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms711294.aspx

Windows Vista Parental Controls is a Consumer-Only Technology

Windows Vista Parental Controls are not intended to be used with domain accounts. As a consumer technology, Parental Controls is not deployed in business SKUs of Windows Vista. If a machine is joined to a domain, the Family Safety user interface links will be suppressed.

A mechanism will be provided to expose the functionality for the domain-joined case, but only non-domain user accounts may be configured with Parental Controls.

To enable Parental Controls on a domain-joined Windows Vista Ultimate installation:

Start --> gpedit.msc

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Parental Controls

“Make Parental Controls control panel visible on a Domain”

parental controls