access to installed game software with Parental Controls enabled on windows 8.1

Hi Bill,

You have allow access to games and desktop applications from the Family Safety settings, so that the child account users can access these applications. Log in to the parent user account and follow these steps:

1. Press Windows key + W, type ‘Family Safety’ and press enter.
2. Click on ‘Family safety’ tile and the Family Safety settings page will open.
3. Click on the child user account and click on ‘Desktop app restrictions’.
4. Check against the game apps that you want to allow.
5. Ask the child account user to sign out of the account and sign in again and check.

Try these steps and let us know the results.

I am running windows 8.1 on a surface pro. I recently activated the parental controls feature and added 2 separate child accounts for my kids.  When they log in to their accounts they cannot access any of the existing game software that was installed prior to enabling the parental controls program. When I access the ‘App restrictions’ from the ‘Family Safety’ settings page the game software programs do not appear on the list. Let me know how to correct this. Thank you.

Hi Bill,

Was the desktop app restriction set as ‘Child account can use all apps’ or ‘Child account can use only the app I allow’ earlier?

I would suggest you to set the Desktop app restriction to ‘Child can use all app’ and then restart the computer and check if the issue persists.

If the issue still persists, I would suggest you to change the family safety settings to be managed from the Family safety website and check. Log in to the parent account and try these steps:

1. Press Windows key + W, type ‘Family Safety’ and press enter.
2. Click on ‘Family safety’ tile and the Family Safety settings page will open.
3. In the Family Safety page, click on the option ‘manage settings on the Family Safety website’.
4. Connect to your family safety parental account then allow all the apps in app restrictions.

Try these steps and let us know the results.

Hi Bill,

Are you able to launch these games? Do you face any other issues with these games?

I would suggest you to reinstall the games from the administrator parent account and then check if the issue persists.

Hi Bill, please confirm if the following are correct:

1. You are running Windows 8.1 on MS Surface Pro.

2. You installed games from your own account, which I assumed it's an administrator account.

3. You activated Parental Controls feature.

4. You created two new Child Windows accounts for your children.

5. Your children logged into their account and can't find the games.

Questions:

1. Did you have any other accounts, besides your accounts, before you activated Parental controls? And did these accounts were able to access the games you installed?

2. Did you install the games from the Windows Store from your own Windows Account? If I'm correct, I believe that when installing games from the Windows Store, the games are installed as Per User and not as All Users; therefore, the game will not exist for other accounts on your Surface device.

Hi Bill,

You can also try adding the program manually to the list of blocked applications and then unblock it and check. Refer to these steps:

1. Press Windows key + W, type ‘Family Safety’ and press enter.
2. Click on ‘Family safety’ tile and the Family Safety settings page will open.
3. Click on the child user account and click on ‘Desktop app restrictions’.
4. Click on ‘Child can use only the apps I allow’ and then click on ‘browse’ button on the bottom.
5. Locate the executable file for that game from the installed location to add that game to the list.
6. Restart the computer, unblock the game and check.

If the issue persists, you can try reinstalling one of the game and check as I suggested earlier.