Safer interactions and safer content for children are the two areas on which Microsoft has focused as far as family settings and parental controls for Windows Vista are concerned. David George, Director of Trustworthy Computing for Windows Vista has revealed that the Redmond Company has introduced the parental controls in Vista in order to monitor and control their child's interactions with the computer.

"This is one of the main reasons I am excited about the release of family settings and the inclusion of parental controls with the consumer launch of Windows Vista. Ease of use, choice and flexibility will be apparent as the parental controls will actually be resident as a part of the account set-up process. As a parent is setting up their children's user accounts on the computer they are asked if they would like the account to be "parentally controlled." If the parent says yes, they will be taken to a parental controls "hub" to apply the settings for the account," stated George.

Via the family filter introduced in Windows Vista, parents will be able to restrict application access, Internet content, control the gaming materials, and even implement time controls. Additionally, parents will have access to auditing and monitoring reports.

"A point to mention with all these tools is that they are readily apparent to the children and young adults that might be using one of the parentally controlled accounts. If a child goes to a website that has been blocked, they will receive a message on the screen that tells them they have been blocked from the site. This is the first time that family settings and parental controls have been available in a Microsoft operating system and I hope that parents are as excited about the availability of the tools from Microsoft as I am about working to develop and introduce them to the market," concluded George.