Family Safety reports only screentime, but limits don't work

Question

I've had issues with getting MS Family Safety to work on my son's account. No go on Win10, no go after installing Win11.

Everything done by the book, but still under his account not all options available, even though they should be.

A friend recently reinstalled Windows on his son's PC and also had issues with MS Family Safety, but decided to break the "Your child's account type MUST be standard, not Admin!, to ensure everything works" rule - he changed his son's account to Admin and suddenly everything set up correctly. So I tried the same and BINGO! Everything fell into place - the device was recognised, all options that should be there were there, etc. Once everything started working I set his account type back to Standard (no need for him to have Admin rights, right?) and enjoyed seeing the reports come in. Yay :) For 1 day, maybe 2. Then the problems started: I still saw his screen time on the PC, but no longer which applications he used (funny how MS showed over 3h of PC time, but also all apps as unused today, even though I was looking over his shoulder as he used a number of programs), and the time limits no longer worked (funny how MS showed "3h20m of 3h allowed"), with no messages informing my son that time is up, nothing being blocked.

Same problem every day for a week. After that week I decided to change his account type to Admin again. And suddenly everything works again: The application reporting, the time limits. I switched his account to standard again and Family Safety worked correctly for 5 or 6 days, then reverted displaying only screentime and not used apps, limits having no effect, etc.

So I switched his account to Admin again, logged into his account, which blocked up within less than a minute (the time was after the evening time limit). All good. I switched his account type back to standard user. Worked for another few days, then reverted back.

I have been playing this "Admin game" more and more often, as now this solution already stops working on the next day. This is taking to much of my time & effort, and not working as it should!

But I still do not understand why the child's account type MUST be changed to Admin for the Family Safety stuff to work correctly, even though all MS info claims it MUST be Standard?!?

My wife is ready to pay for a 3rd party solution if MS can't get their own program to work.

Any other rules I should break to make this work?

Answer 1

It seems you are experiencing issues with Microsoft Family Safety features not functioning correctly when your son's account is set to Standard. According to Microsoft documentation, the Family Safety features should work with Standard accounts, and changing the account type to Admin should not be necessary for these features to function properly.

However, it appears that you have found a workaround by temporarily changing the account type to Admin, which then allows the Family Safety features to work as expected. This behavior is not typical, and it could be due to a bug or a specific configuration issue on your system.

Here are a few suggestions that might help:

1. Ensure Windows is Updated: Make sure that both Windows 10 and Windows 11 are fully updated, as updates often include bug fixes that could resolve these issues.
2. Check Family Safety Settings: Double-check the settings in the Family Safety app to ensure everything is configured correctly for the Standard account.
3. Feedback Hub: Consider reporting this issue through the Feedback Hub app, as Microsoft may not be aware of this specific problem and your feedback could help them address it in future updates.
4. Reinstall Family Safety: If issues persist, try reinstalling the Family Safety app to see if that resolves the problem.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, it may be worth considering third-party solutions as a temporary measure until Microsoft can address the underlying problem with Family Safety.

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References:

• Family Safety
• About Parental Controls