Family Safety Restricting Access

Question

my dad 2 years ago disabled the safety things for my pc, and now, it’s restricting access to apps again. We’ve tried a lot, and even had him remove me, but it’s still preventing me opening certain apps.

Answer 1

Hi Katelyn Robinson,

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A Forum. I understand that Family Safety is still restricting access to certain apps on your Windows 11 Home PC even though your parent previously disabled the controls and removed you from the family group.

Please make sure you already tried the Q&A Assist steps. In addition, please try the following.

Before we continue, I just want to narrow this down a bit:

• Are you currently signing in to Windows using a Microsoft account or a local account?
• Do the app restrictions appear with a specific message, or do the apps simply fail to open?

In the meantime, you can try these steps:

1, Sign in to https://family.microsoft.com using the parent Microsoft account and confirm that your account no longer appears in the family group. If your account still appears, remove it again and wait a few minutes for the change to sync

2, On your PC, sign out of Windows, restart the device, then sign back in

• This helps refresh any cached Family Safety policies still applied locally

3, Check that no child status remains on the account

• Go to Settings > Open Accounts > Select Your info
• Confirm the account is listed as an adult account

4, Verify that Screen time and app limits are not applied at the device level

• Go to Settings > Open Accounts > Select Family
• Confirm no limits are shown for your account

5, Make sure the Family Safety background service is not enforcing old rules

• Restart the PC and ensure no Family Safety notifications appear after sign-in

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".  

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.  

Answer 2

It sounds like you're experiencing issues with Family Safety settings on your Windows PC. Even if your dad has removed you from the Family Safety controls, there may still be restrictions in place that are affecting your access to certain apps.

Here are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve the issue:

1. Check Family Safety Settings: Ensure that Family Safety is completely disabled for your account. Sometimes, settings may not update immediately, so it might be worth checking again.
2. Administrator Access: Make sure you have administrator privileges on your account. If you don't, certain changes may not be applied correctly.
3. Windows Update: Ensure that your Windows is up to date, as updates can sometimes fix bugs related to Family Safety and app access.
4. Reset Family Safety Settings: If possible, have your dad log into his account and reset the Family Safety settings to ensure there are no lingering restrictions.
5. Create a New User Account: If the issue persists, consider creating a new user account without Family Safety restrictions to see if that resolves the problem.

If none of these steps work, you may want to consult Microsoft's support documentation or community forums for further assistance.

---

References:

• What's New in Windows 8 Family Safety
• Smart App Control overview
• Modern apps are blocked by security software when you start the applications on Windows 10
• Smart App Control overview