[MFCSteve]

I am having a few problems with Parental Controls on Vista SP2.
As a background to the situation, after 4 years I decided to reformat my PC simply to give it a fresh start. After reinstalling Vista there were 140+ updates to install but none of the ones that were picked up by Windows Update were the services packs so I downloaded and installed them manually.
Once that was finished I installed some softare and set up parental controls as the other account does not need access to things such as Dreamweaver or Stardock Fences but would need access to other things such as iTunes.
This worked to an extent as when the other account was logged in to it launched into a barrage of pop-ups saying that various programs needed an Adminstrator password, but I did not want these programs to be available at all. On the flipside, when I tried to run iTunes on the other account it just tried to install.

During this, every time I switched the PC on, it found more updates and over a couple of days it was almost constantly installing updates. Today is the first day that no new updates have been found so tried to use Parental Controls to sort out the program acces. Whe I click on 'Allow and Block Specific Programs' I now get a pop up saying 'Unable to make changes to parental controls settings. If this problem persists, see your system administrator', even though I have administrator rights on my account.
Quite simply, what I am trying to do is.....
Allow only certain problems to be accessible from the other account. All programs should be available through my account but I only want the other account to be able to use the programs that I specify. I would like to do this without pop ups stating that certain programs need administrator permission, I just want there to be no evidence of them in the other account.
Also, things that autostart on my account (such as the web server I have installed) do not need to autostart on the other account so I would like to block them from starting up without the msconfig utility popping up every time.

Thanks in advance
Steve

[etaf]

make the other account a user account and NOT admin

do not need to autostart on the other account so I would like to block them from starting up without the msconfig utility popping up every time.

msconfig should NOT pop up at all - if you change the startups , then click the do not show - box- on reboot

so the status now is that you have two accounts - BOTH administrator
you have parental controls on one account (can you name them, on the post , rather than "other" as that go confusing reading your post)

[MFCSteve]

All the times I have used msconfig over the years I have never seen that checkbox! Something new learned!

The are two accounts on the system...
Steve - my account, password protected with full administration rights.
Family - general account, not password protected and no administrator rights.

I want 'Steve' to have full access to all programs and startups.
I want 'Family' to only have access to certain programs and startups, set up by me through my account as I do not want the kids installing all sorts of software.

Parental controls was set up on the 'Family' account only. It worked fine to start with but now gives the 'Unable to make changes to parental controls settings. If this problem persists, see your system administrator' error as soon as I click on
'Allow and Block Specific Programs'.

Quite simply, I use a lot of different software such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop and FTP programs that no-one using the 'Family' account needs access to, or to even be able to see. However, everyone needs access to iTunes, without it having to ask for the admin password each time (although I am not sure why iTunes is trying to reinstall when accessed through 'Family'.

I am sure this would be simple if I could get Parental Controls to work again but not sure what the problem is.

Thanks
Steve

[etaf]

All the times I have used msconfig over the years I have never seen that checkbox! Something new learned!

it should appear after you reboot
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...:0&tx=41&ty=40

Family - general account, not password protected and no administrator rights.

you may want to delete the account and reset up and see if you can apply parental controls form the Steve Account

[MFCSteve]

Originally Posted by etaf

it should appear after you reboot

I always thought that checking that would stop msconfig from blocking the startup programs, not just stop msconfig from showing up!

Originally Posted by etaf

you may want to delete the account and reset up and see if you can apply parental controls form the Steve Account

I will get onto that now and see how it goes.

Steve

[etaf]

I always thought that checking that would stop msconfig from blocking the startup programs, not just stop msconfig from showing up!

just stops the message appearing everytime you boot

[MFCSteve]

Deleted the account, set up a new one, tried to set up parental controls from 'Steve' and still get the same error message.
Steve

[etaf]

the exact message is

[etaf]

have a read through here and see if a step missing and post exactly at what point it fails and the exact error message


http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/95...se.html?filter[11]=Parental%20Controls
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/95...ms.html?filter[11]=Parental%20Controls

[MFCSteve]

I get as far as setting up parental controls on the account but when I click on

'Allow and Block Specific Programs'

I get a pop-up that says

'Unable to make changes to parental controls settings. If this problem persists, see your system administrator'

[etaf]

no a lot ot go on - standard MS type error message then

check the services and see if parental control stated
you can check the services in Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.
open it's properties and check the dependencies. Check each of the dependencies and see which one is preventing the service from running.

Checking the event log is also a good idea here, there may be clues to what is failing.
Start > control panel > administrative tools > event Viewer

[MFCSteve]

Parental Controls was already started so restarted it to see if that worked but still the same. Checked Dependencies and all that was there was >> Remote Procedure Call (RPC) >> DCOM Server Process Launcher
Both were already started but there was another called Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locater which wasn't started so I started that. Still the same problem.

I have been all through the event viewer to see if there is anything showing up that is seemingly related to the parental controls but there is nothing.

[etaf]

only suggestion left would be to do a system restore to a date before the issue started
start>programs>accessories>system tools>system restore

otherwise, sorry, I'm out of ideas

[MFCSteve]

Will a system restore wipe out any of the Windows Updates installed after that point? Not a massive problem if it is, just a bit time consuming due to the number of updates there have been.
I suppose if that is the case, the best thing would be to install the updates one by one until I spot which one caused the problem.
Steve

[etaf]

I suppose if that is the case, the best thing would be to install the updates one by one until I spot which one caused the problem.

Yes, if it is the update