Chances are if you’re a parent, you’ve experienced having your children mess up something you own. Generally we take this in stride; it’s part of being a parent and comes with the territory. However, when that something is your computer, it’s important to set boundaries.
Like most personal computers, it probably contains too much vital information to entrust it into the hands of anyone and everyone. Maybe you have had the unpleasant experience of logging onto your computer only to find it acting strangely in small — or even big — ways, not knowing where to start looking for what is wrong, or even who to blame due to all the different people who have access to it. If so, then you no doubt can understand the need to safeguard your computer.
Issues with computers can take days of do-it-yourself trial and error for the average user to fix and sometimes may even require the help of professionals to fix the problems caused by others. So what are some ways to safeguard your computer?
If you are the only person who does use — or should be using — your computer, the best way to protect it from others is to password protect it. Windows XP and newer versions make this an easy process. Simply locate the user accounts management in your computer’s control panel, and follow the easy steps provided to set a password. This will protect your computer from anyone who does not know your password.
The steps to protect your computer from others, even if they do have and need access to your computer are much the same. By utilizing the user accounts feature, you can give admin access to only the computer owner’s account, and control other user’s accounts and permissions individually to control what files others can and cannot access. For additional security, you can explore the options offered by parental controls on various versions of Windows, which will help you control what times and how long your children can access your computer.
You can even control if they can access the internet, what sites they can or cannot visit, whether or not they are able to download files from the internet, and even allow or disallow them to access files on the hard drive or save to the hard drive. This comes in especially handy when you want to allow your children access to your computer for things such as homework, as they can then save all pertinent files to a flash drive without the risk of saving potentially harmful files to your computer where they can do serious damage.
There are many ways to protect your computer from others — be they children, spouses, roommates, or friends, even without resorting to banning them from your computer. Plus most computers with Windows operating systems come with everything you need already conveniently installed.
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