One of the big advantages of Windows Vista over Windows XP is the addition of Parental Controls to the user account management.

With Vista you can put limits on various things such as the times your kids are allowed to use the internet, what kind of website they’re allowed to visit, specific websites they’re not allowed to visit, and the types of games they can play.

You have as little or as much control over these things as you want. You can let Windows manage it all for you, say by filtering websites based on their ratings or allowing games based on their ratings. You don’t have to worry about the specifics.

Or you can go in and specifically allow or block any website, game or program you want.

These controls are all accessed from the user accounts section in the Control Panel, which is available from the Start menu.

If you don’t already have separate user accounts set up for your kids, now is the time to do it - and then activate the parental controls for them so you don’t have to worry about what they’re doing on the computer when you’re not watching.