Stay in touch with all your friends, family and colleagues with Windows Live Messenger! - Tutorial 4 - Configuring Windows Live Family Safety

Windows Live Messenger is extremely popular with children and teenagers. Youngsters love to socialise and chat to their friends. Thanks to the internet and mobile phones, todays young people are more connected than ever before. Of course, there are disadvantages to such a widely connected world. Parents who are concerned about strangers contacting their children can use Windows Live Family Safety. This clever module not only makes it possible for parents to manage their childrens contact lists, it also includes a web filter and an activity reporting tool.

In this video, we'll show you how to set up Windows Live Family Safety. Which parts of this module you use and how you configure them for your family is up to you.

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Additional Notes

Configuring User Accounts - We strongly recommend setting up limited accounts for your children. If you do not, then it is much easier for your children to reconfigure your computer and uninstall or bypass any filtering or online safety software you use, including Windows Live Family Safety. Click here for a tutorial on setting up user accounts in Windows XP, or here for a tutorial on setting up accounts in Windows Vista.

We noticed that after creating a new account and logging on for the first time, the Windows Live Family Safety filter would automatically log in with the parents account. Before allowing your child to use his or her new account, double check that you are signed out of Live Family Safety.

Signing in and out - Don't forget that you need to sign OUT of Family Safety before letting your children use the PC. If you forget, they will be able to surf the web on your Family Safety profile which probably has no safeguards! If you have older children and you configure different filter settings for them, make sure they sign out of their Family Safety accounts before passing the keyboard to their younger siblings.

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