Family safety: Feedback on recent changes to multi-device management

I fail to understand why that this development could not occur offline / separate from the currently functioning system. Especially since Windows 10 is not formally released, there is no reason that it should need to affect the current system. In fact, they could always be separate and then the current family safety could be phased out when Windows 10 is actually available to be used.

I fail to understand why that this development could not occur offline / separate from the currently functioning system.        

I'm a developer and while I know the best state of practice is to isolate layers of your system in order to be able to service and maintain them independently, sometimes in practice this breaks down. In these cases there are mitigation strategies used to bring users up to speed on the changes that are going to come and when to expect them, and how to prepare for them so users can accommodate for the changes. In the worst case scenario, things go horribly wrong and unexpected dependencies or interactions take place and then a post-mortem is needed to keep users abreast of what is happening and how it is getting fixed. This is how a company that is good with dealing with users handles these situations.

Microsoft does a pretty (sometimes a really) good job of this with Xbox and Azure, for example. Recently Gabe Aul has set a new high-bar of openness, honesty, respect and responsiveness to user feedback for the Win10 Insider program, even when dealing with many competing issues, and a wolf pack of tech press eager to criticize any MS misstep on Win10. Accelerating the Win10 fast track was fraught with peril, and Gabe did the right thing.

Family Safety team - what happened? How could you let us down so harshly, and then not give us some kind of post-mortem? People on this forum are tech savvy, no doubt, and I know that whatever you do someone will object and criticize, but erring on the side of transparency is a good trend. Follow your peer divisions there at MS, and get in front of this. Let us know the details of what happened, why and how it is going to be resolved.

Hi Jen,

Can you confirm whether or not the new approach, which talks all about Windows 10, will provide the same features still in Windows 8.1.

I'm asking because there's so much being said about this being in preparation for Windows 10.

Most people are obviously finding having to manage (children) x (devices) number of profiles a real problem and that includes me however, there's possibly some benefit of making this optional.

With the increasing use of Microsoft accounts, and the variety of devices in a typical home, it's quite likely that parents may want to apply different curfew/usage/filtering on different devices. I don't mind my children using  our new Linx tablet but definitely don't want them downloading things onto it whereas I'm not so concerned about their own laptops.

Regards

Steve

So last night at 1:35 am my special needs child was in bed with the tablet that wasn't supposed to be working after 9pm.

family safety fail.

and I think it failed totally because I didn't get a report for it at all.. Good times today sorting that mess out.

the ONE THING in my life I no longer had to nag about, and be the bad guy about.... Gone.

I'm taking it personally, it sucks. You guys broke the one thing that brought peace to my house that wasn't via a "Fruit" product. Why???? Everything you say you are giving me sometime this summer, I had. It worked.

so now I have to exert mental energy on something that fixed that once for me, and brought peace to the house....

meanwhile, i keep the tablet and she is horrid to live with.

thanks for nothing MS, stab me in the back after sucking me into being your friend again. That would be sucker on my forehead.

here is the thing: the problem guys is that this functionality is so important for us... but we are few people if compared to the rest of Windows users, so when they have to decide how to do a transition from a technology to another, we are not taken in any sort of consideration.

that's how it is going... because in any other case, if a deployment of a new functionality completely breaks the previous one - and this is what is clearly happen - a rollback would immediately take place, with many apologies.

my advice is to couple the Microsoft Family Safety with another solution, for example I use the Asus router RT-AC56U which incorporates a time range and sites categories filter at device level (MAC address): when one technology doesn't reach, the other helps.

Hi Jenn -

The new interface that changed (everything) the other day has made managing applications even harder. Before, I could toggle with a radio button whether an app was allowed or blocked, which was invaluable to make sure my kids weren't playing around before finishing school. Now, I can only "remove" the apps from one list or the other, I can't 'add' and app, or move it from the allow to the blocked list or back.

Also time settings were great with the grid as I could block out a window in the middle of the day, if I wanted. Now, I can only define one time range/per day with an allowance of time for that day. What if I want them to have access from 8 am - 10 pm, but block out a time from noon-2 pm for example? I can't do that. The grid was easy and intuitive. This didn't need "simplifying."

 Mark

Oh My God!!!

Just checked the family interface after last post, and it is true, Microsoft have indeed made it worse yet again. This is freaking ridiculous, they are making the family safety more and more useless with each change.

As Mark said, you no longer have any control of what times they can use the computer, you can set 1 time and that is all. The previous method was far better.

The people who are in charge of family safety clearly do not have children and know about them, which frankly is just incompetent to put such people in charge of such a project. So now we have Windows phones with no parental controls at all, and windows computers with less control than than they had before.

So far this is looking like Windows 10 is going to be a bigger FUBAR than Windows 8 was.

I can't get anything I add to lists to stick. I need to add 3 websites, and they are failing in IE withOUT the family safety message.... So I can't add them at the computer. I have tried adding the domain, it won't stay. I've tried using allow, won't stick.

same for the one I need to block.

then, have you always been able to see those lists on the computer, in the kids account? Because that was a shock... It shows everything that the website does, you just are directed online to change it.

ugh.

i totally agree the people doing this don't have kids, they are the ones that have yelled at me for years on a fruity forum for using parental controls. Let me parent, and give me back what I had before.

It is clear to me that the next three phones we buy will not be windows phone.  We just ordered my daughter's iphone from a windows phone and my wife and I are on our second wp device.  Our next upgrade will not be a windows phone.  We had been looking at a Surface 3, now there is no way.  This experience has undermined any trust I had in Microsoft.  Microsoft sold me on family safety and the one windows experience, takes my money and then changes a critical feature to have none of the functionality that my family relies on.  It must be remembered that the FAQ page appeared several weeks, if not months after the functionality was stripped.  The change happened without notice or warning, leaving our children vulnerable.  This is not only "less than ideal", it is criminal. 

There is a whole thread of equally furious and disappointed individuals at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-security/why-is-there-now-a-separate-account-for-each/9ce896b7-e181-45d5-bca1-03610f6cd920?page=9&msgId=4b78aa57-2944-4a56-9ca2-adeefcffafef

Everyone, I don't know if you have noticed, but the last two weeks brought additional "simplifications".  Go check it out.  The web filter is now "simplified" such that you no longer have to even select the level of filtering.  It is magically now either on or off.  Before, we had to suffer through telling the software if we wanted the filtering to be at kid level or teenager level, but no longer.  All the kids, 4 yrs old or 15, are either filtered or not.  Perhaps next week we will get further simplifications such that we don't even get to select manually which sites are filtered.

 

Alright, sorry for the sarcasm.  This is now beyond ridiculous.  Please help me bring some accountability to this team and submit the story to news channels below?  I just copied pasted the same tip to each of the URLs below.  Maybe if enough of us do it, it will work?

 

-NBC: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40220716/#.VYhwq8fQMUE

-NBC Nightly News: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29104230/ns/nbc_nightly_news_with_brian_williams/t/contact-us/#.VYhxGMfQMUE

-Today: http://www.today.com/id/10285339/ns/today/t/contact-nbc-news/

-CNN: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form11b.html?1

-CNN2: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/tips/

-CBS: http://www.cbs.com/feedback/

-FOX: http://help.foxnews.com/entries/500736-Where-can-I-send-story-questions-corrections-or-news-tips-

-FOX2: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/10/14/contact-us.html

-FOX3: http://help.foxnews.com/entries/500745-Does-FoxNews-com-have-a-news-hotline-

-ABC: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Swimming/mailform?id=10294723

-ABC2: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/mailform?id=10691207

-ABC3: http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page/contact-abcnewscom-3068843