Inside Control Panel, click Parental Controls icon.

2. In Parental Controls window, you’ll get an alert if your Administrator account has not password yet. You have to give your account a password first because Parental Controls require a password to make it safer.

And you can also see it on your account icon (it said No Password) and to create password for your account, just click the icon.

And you’ll get a confirmation message box, click Yes button to confirm making password for your Administrator account.

In Ensure Passwords, enter your password twice; make sure you enter the same passwords between them and then click OK button to save your password.

Then you’ll bring to Parental Controls back. And your account icon has said you have a password protected account now.
(You may bypass this step if your Administrator account has protected by password)

3. Next, set your games ratings system by click Select a games ratings system link below Task section.

Select the games ratings system in list and by default, Windows Vista has set to ESRB system. Then click OK.

4. Next. Set when system will remind you to read activity reports by click Family Safety Options link below Task section too.
In Family Safety Options, you can set it to remind you by Weekly, Every day or Never. Click OK if you already make a choice.

5. Now, the time to create standard account for your kids. And bypass this step if you’ve created it. But if you haven’t, click Create a new user account link.

Then type your account name, and you want your kids set their own password, check User must set password at next logon check box and if you don’t, you can set it at User Account later. Then click Create account button.

6. Then you’ll bring to Parental Controls center for your new account. Or if you’ve had your kids’ accounts, you can click on their account icon to configure Parental Controls configuration to each user account.
In Set up how (account_name) will use the computer form, select On, enforce current settings option to turn it on. And for Activity Reporting, choose On if you want computer collect your kids activities.
There are four configurations available to configure. They are Windows Vista Web Filter, Time Limits, Games and Allow and block specific programs. And we will discuss them one by one.

7. I start from Windows Vista Web Filter. To open it clicks its link Windows Settings section. To block or allow websites, choose Block some websites or contents options. Parental Controls gives you 4 block levels. High, Medium, None and Custom. It will block by category.

And if you want customize your level, choose Custom option and check which do categories to block.

Also, you can block per domain name, to do it, just click To control access to specific websites, add the website to the Allow and block list link And type the URL website and then click Allow button to allowing that website to access and Block button to block it. Click OK to save your settings.

8. Second Windows Settings is Time Limit, with this setting you can manage hours when you can run Windows and not.
OK, to begin to manage it, click Time Limit link below Windows Settings in Parental Controls Screen. In Time Limit screen, just click in start hours and release in end hours on day name. For example if you want set 8:00 am until 01:00pm on Sunday, click 8:00am cell on Sunday bar, drag your mouse, drives it to right and release on 01:00pm cell and you’ll get blue block that mark the hours. Blue cells mean, your kids don’t allow playing with their computer.

9. Third Windows Settings is Games. You can manage what kind of games that can play by your kids. Click Games below Windows Settings to begin to manage it. In Games settings, click Yes option if you allow your kids to play games.

Also, in this screen you can manage the rating and specific games that can play. You can begin to set Game ratings by click Set game ratings.

In games ratings screen, I suggest you choose Block games with no ratings option and the set your ranges of game ratings by click the option box and you can select multiple options.

In Games settings you also can block and allow specific game that can play by your kid. To configure it, click Block or Allow specific games link. And it will display all of your installed games; there are three options to choose. User Rating Setting, this option will follow its rating as in Game Settings value; Always Allow will allow your kid plays this game whatever your game rating configuration; Always Block will block this game to play.

You can scroll down of your screen to block games by the contents categories. Just check it to block.

10. Fourth Windows Settings is Allow and block specific programs. You can manage the installed programs, you allow it or not. To manage it clicks its link below Windows Settings title. In Allow and block specific programs screen, choose (Account name) can only use the programs I allow to set it to your rules. You can check the programs that allow running by your kids in displayed list. If you can find your program, click Browse to pointing you .exe program file.

11. Now, you’ve learn all of Windows Settings have. Don’t forget you can look your kids’ activities reports by click View activity reports link below your account screen.

I hope this tutorial can make you understand how to configure Parental Controls clearly.
(article no:0117)

2. To open Configuration Editor window, you can click on items in Configuration section (if you’re looking my picture below, click area is inside red rectangle) or go to Edit – Virtual Machine menu.

3. In Configurations Editor, click Resource: Options, click Advanced tab and then make sure Acceleration level set to High and Enable Intel VT-x support is checked.

4. Next, click Resource: Shared Applications. I suggest you disable Share Windows application to Mac and Share Mac applications to Windows with uncheck their checkboxes. Although they are great features, but if you enable them, Parallels Desktop will create many shortcuts and actually you will use shortcuts rarely or even you’ll never use them.

5. Next, click Resource: Shared Profile. The decision is in your hands. But I was choosing to disable it, because it will make you confuse and make your Windows be slower. And in my experience, I got some errors with it.

6. In fact, Parallels Desktop support 3D application ran on its virtual machine but it optimized for Mac products which have dedicated 3D card such as Macbook Pro and iMac. But you can optimize the configurations so that Parallels Desktop permits its virtual machine support Direct X. To enable the option, click Resource: Video and check Enable DirectX support checkbox so as you can run Direct X applications.

7. To configure memory amount of virtual machine, click Resource: Memory. If you run Windows XP on it set memory to 384 MB and Vista to 512 MB. This setting is important because if you configure the amount too large, you Mac OS X will run very slowly. In my experiment, I’ve set Video Memory to 16MB if I ran Windows XP and 32MB to Windows Vista.

8. In Resource: Floppy, sure I disable the Floppy because I don’t see its benefit.

9. In Resource: Hard Disk, you can find an important button here. Parallels Desktop has two mode of its Virtual Hard Disk. Expanding Hard disk and Plan Hard disk. In Expanding hard disk your virtual hard disk has flexible size as your Windows XP/Vista needs. Contrary with Expanding hard disk, Plain hard drive has consistent of file size. And Parallels Desktop set to Expanding mode by default. Unfortunately, sometimes Expanding hard disk has larger file size than the actual used. So, if you feel your virtual hard disk file size is too big, go to Resource: Hard Disk, click Advanced tab and click Compact button to reduce your virtual hard disk file.

10. In Resource: USB Controller, I suggest you choose Ask me what to do option. So, every time you plug your USB device, you’ll ask by system. Mac OS X or Parallels Desktop virtual machine that will use it.

OK, we’ve discussed Parallels Desktop configurations which must get attention. And don’t forget Parallels Desktop also install its tools which calls Parallels Tools Center in its virtual machine. For example, on Windows Vista you can open it by double click its icon in systray or you can open it through Start – All Programs – Parallels Tools menu.

You can compact your hard disk in this tool/Parallels Tools Center. Click Tool: Disk Compacting, check Execute all stages at once then click Start button and it will takes 30-90 minutes. And you can find the others Tool inside it.

(article no:0116)