is there program to control time on the computer? nm, found one

[CanisEstInVia]

My sister just got a computer, and already my dad doesn't like how much time she spends on it. Is there something out there that will control how much time she can spend on it? I'm thinking something along the lines of having her log in, and there'll be a counter in the corner showing how much time she has left for the day. Thanks for any and all responses.

edit: a quick search at download.com found Watchdog 5.0. Looks pretty simple so far in case someone else wants to know.

 

[TheWart]

mods can you please lock so my family doesnt read this thread

this software seems to do the job nicely. please give a short review after you get it running please.

 

[Slogun]

After seeing Watchdog 5.0 posted here, I went and got it and tried it out.

You need to configure your kid as a restricted user and yourself as a parent user. Makes sense.

However, since my son is the only user configured (via windows) on his computer, watchdog would not let me sign on as parent, despite having let me configure myself as a parent user with a password. Hence, i could not adjust settings or anything. I did not want to configure myself as a user on his computer so I just uninstalled the thing and it gave me trouble with that too.
Had to uninstall, reboot a few times as it wouldn't leave cause I wsn't able to sign in as parent. Then had to reinstall it and configure my son as a parent before I could uninstall the ting completely.

So if you want to use this thing, looks like you must have separate user accounts for parent and child configured on the machine.
Just thought I would mention this here to possibly save someone else a headache.

 

[CanisEstInVia]

just a follow up

Sorry for causing you such trouble Slogun, but Watchdog is alright with users in place. I have it set to restrict the my sister from logging in after 9pm. The security measures included with the program arent enough, so I used some of window's own protection. A pretty big problem right now is every so often watchdog just doesnt load and I walk by seeing my sister on after 9. I'm not sure what's going on as I'm not using that computer and can't really watch over what shes doing, so I duno... maybe it's something busted I'm doing. That or she's figured out something I didnt think of. Damn kids these days . I'll just tell my dad to use the old method of simply checking up on her to see if she's on after 9. If she's still logging on somehow, Ima look for something new.

 

[Slogun]

Don't worry about causing me trouble, it was fun to try it out and a learning experience

Here's another idea for you though:

If what you want is for your sister to get off by a certain time (eg. 9pm), you might try the free program Switch Off.
One of it's features is to turn the computer off at a set time. I have used that on my son's computer.
If you you use it for that purpose, you will want to set it so that it does not give a warning before shutting down the computer, otherwise it allows time for the computer user to override it.

You can get it here.

This program can also be set to have the computer stay ON for a set amount of time.