I need a foolproof computer control software or an alternative solution
Here's a summary.
My little brother is 13 - he plays on the PC too much. He's addicted to starcraft II and other video games. His grades are very bad. He needs to limit his PC time, but I cannot take away the PC completely because he still needs it for school.
I installed watchdog, which in theory is great. I limited his PC access to certain hours of the day and disabled access to certain programs. But he is good with computers.
He will simply google ways to get around watchdog.
First he did a killtask command in the cmd prompt. After I found out about that - I disabled cmd.exe so he cannot access it.
Then he used other programs to access cmd prompt .. renaming notepad to .bat or something.
Then I disabled notepad and basically a lot of other programs and a lot of his rights - I don't remember exactly what I did, but it was a lot of the options on Watchdog to not allow registry changes and things like that.
Then, recently, according to the history, he was googling youtube videos on how to access the PC without a password and how to find out the pw on your computer and how to find out the pw without cmd... I'm not sure exactly what he did because there are like 10 youtube links of him trying to do this and I have not looked at them yet. But I do know that he was looking at these videos at around 9:20 PM, two days ago. And coincidentally, at around 9:30 PM, watchdog was shut off permanently and it seems to have been deleted from the PC ever since .. the icon is still there but I cannot open it anymore .. so he has free reign to play his games 24/7.
He claims he has not done anything but try to mess with the comodo firewall to disable watchdog.
What I was planning on doing is reinstalling watchdog and this time restricting youtube and facebook access.. maybe just limiting internet access to the two websites he needs. But even then, I don't know what he did, so he can still do it again if he remembers. Therefore I would have to look at those videos and make sure he isn't able to do it again. I am just wondering if there is a better, easier, and more effective solution in going about limiting his computer access. He is hooked and he it seems like he will do whatever it takes to get on there to play his games or go on facebook, even lie to my face!
The PC is windows 7 - it would also be nice if I can monitor his usage remotely, and also give him extra time and things like that based on his needs, all remotely. That would be nice, but as you can see, the main thing is I need something that is strict that would not allow him to "google" his way out of the restrictions.
Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks!
My little brother is 13 - he plays on the PC too much. He's addicted to starcraft II and other video games. His grades are very bad. He needs to limit his PC time, but I cannot take away the PC completely because he still needs it for school.
I installed watchdog, which in theory is great. I limited his PC access to certain hours of the day and disabled access to certain programs. But he is good with computers.
He will simply google ways to get around watchdog.
First he did a killtask command in the cmd prompt. After I found out about that - I disabled cmd.exe so he cannot access it.
Then he used other programs to access cmd prompt .. renaming notepad to .bat or something.
Then I disabled notepad and basically a lot of other programs and a lot of his rights - I don't remember exactly what I did, but it was a lot of the options on Watchdog to not allow registry changes and things like that.
Then, recently, according to the history, he was googling youtube videos on how to access the PC without a password and how to find out the pw on your computer and how to find out the pw without cmd... I'm not sure exactly what he did because there are like 10 youtube links of him trying to do this and I have not looked at them yet. But I do know that he was looking at these videos at around 9:20 PM, two days ago. And coincidentally, at around 9:30 PM, watchdog was shut off permanently and it seems to have been deleted from the PC ever since .. the icon is still there but I cannot open it anymore .. so he has free reign to play his games 24/7.
He claims he has not done anything but try to mess with the comodo firewall to disable watchdog.
What I was planning on doing is reinstalling watchdog and this time restricting youtube and facebook access.. maybe just limiting internet access to the two websites he needs. But even then, I don't know what he did, so he can still do it again if he remembers. Therefore I would have to look at those videos and make sure he isn't able to do it again. I am just wondering if there is a better, easier, and more effective solution in going about limiting his computer access. He is hooked and he it seems like he will do whatever it takes to get on there to play his games or go on facebook, even lie to my face!
The PC is windows 7 - it would also be nice if I can monitor his usage remotely, and also give him extra time and things like that based on his needs, all remotely. That would be nice, but as you can see, the main thing is I need something that is strict that would not allow him to "google" his way out of the restrictions.
Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks!
ASKER
You wouldn't say that if you looked at his grades!
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ASKER
Okay, forget providing a PC for searching and forget about controlling it remotely. I won't be moving out for at least a month anyway. I don't really think he needs access to search engines for his homework, he really just needs his 2 homework websites.
ASKER
He certainly isn't using the Administrator account on Win 7, but I have not looked into customizing the limitations on his own account. I will look into that to as an added measure. But I doubt that will prevent what he did. Sorry, I will have to look at the videos to see specifically what he did and get back to you guys.
The problem with limiting his PC access to only when someone is there is that no one IS there. My parents and I work late, and I want him to do his HW not too long after he comes home from school. I don't think it's practical in our situation for us to only let him use it when someone is around, because usually no one will be.
The problem with limiting his PC access to only when someone is there is that no one IS there. My parents and I work late, and I want him to do his HW not too long after he comes home from school. I don't think it's practical in our situation for us to only let him use it when someone is around, because usually no one will be.
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ASKER
We are trying an alternative, less restrictive system. Thanks everyone!
sorry.. im having no answer but you have to admit... this is genius for a 13y old! :)
i remember myself in this on my commadore64!