Bypass Family Settings by conversion to Local Account

DQL · 30 Mar 2016

The complete and total failure of this "Family Safety" feature in Windows 10 is a very serious corporate credibility issue for Microsoft.

It has taken hours and hours of my time, it doesn't work in the end, and has injected a source of argument and pain into my family. This isn't a "me and the computer" issue. It is a "me and my family" issue.

NOTHING Microsoft has ever done has made me want to turn away from this company more than this.

Hey, twenty-something yahoo programmers that designed this broken feature - all too young and naive to even understand what a family is, and hey, executive leadership at Microsoft that thinks these features are low priority - time to start paying attention.

Ssjssj · 30 Mar 2016

Well said! Yes a lot of hours, tension and tears, yet at the end I got diddly squat out of the Microsoft family. What a joke...

jamecleve · 07 Apr 2016

Hi DQL! The Windows password could be also bypassed by booting from some third-party live CDs, so I suggest you also set a BIOS password to prevent your children from changing the boot sequence. After that there is no way to break the family settings, I think.

barryow · 11 Apr 2016

DQL said:

I just upgraded all my computers to Windows 10.

My 15 year old is clever enough to bypass the (new) Family settings controlled Microsoft Account I just set up for him by converting the account to a local account. This seems to let him play as long as he wants, without time restrictions. I didn't get an email about this, or any other notification. This is the second time he has done it.

Why is it so easy to completely bypass all the family safety settings it took me hours(!) to finally get set up?

Also the Family Recent Activity shown on my Microsoft Account web site doesn't seem to update itself. It is at least two or three days behind, perhaps more. How often does Recent Activity update? Is it supposed to be near instantaneous?

I also have the same problem with child account. When the child account is switched to a local one, all my blocked websites and programs become accessible again. This should be a serious bug in Windows 10 and I have to temporarily block the account switching. Hopefully there is a update from Microsoft to fix the family safety issue soon.

John1000 · 14 Apr 2016

Have we become any wiser, when it comes to the subject?

My conclusion is that currently there are three workarounds:

Restricting the child´s user account with guest privileges. The downside to this, parsing above posts, is for example that form auto fill is disabled, besides that some apps do not run.
Restricting access to Control Panel and settings by means of the Group Policy Editor or a registry hack, as detailed here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...d-319bfff0ffb1 Unfortunately, this also seems to bar every other account on the computer from access. And, moreover, the child really should have the freedom to choose settings and personalize the computer environment at will. Being forced to repeatedly edit policy settings every time at these situations, can further be very tedious. Lastly, this solution might not work in all Windows versions.
The best option, as I see it, although far from ideal, is to use a Microsoft e-mail account password that’s secret for the child. After inviting that account to the family and having the request answered, setting up the child’s user account can be done either by creating and adding a new Microsoft account or switching an existing local one to this. Then, a PIN needs to be set, for the child to use when logging in. From what I can tell, thereafter it is not possible to revert back or change a Microsoft account to a local account, unless knowing the current e-mail password. A shrewd kid can of course try to reset the password via the reset function, but, as long as two step verification is enabled and correctly set up, that probably won’t be feasible without the parent being notified by an e-mail or a cell phone text message.

Such a pity an otherwise helpful Windows tool is afflicted by this apparent flaw.

DanGA · 08 Jun 2016

The other idea is to use a special parental control program.
There are loads of them in the net, so you are free to chose, depending on the age of a child or on the seriousness of control, eg K9 or Time Boss ...
Additionally you get remote access to kids PC, forced breaks, limitation internet sites by time and others...

DQL · 10 Jun 2016

DanGA said:

The other idea is to use a special parental control program.
There are loads of them in the net, so you are free to chose, depending on the age of a child or on the seriousness of control, eg K9 or Time Boss ...
Additionally you get remote access to kids PC, forced breaks, limitation internet sites by time and others...

That's what I did.

jtomara37 · 09 Dec 2016

DQL said:

That's what I did.

So what 3rd party program did you guys end up going with to resolve this issue. I have the same problem with local account by pass.... I am going to try the 2 step verification - then change their microsoft account password to see if that helps. That is the problem, the password they use to login to the computer is that same password associated with their microsoft account. I knew thats how they removed themselves from family account via local account which they have to type in their password to do. I tried to change thier microsoft account password thinking it was different than the password for their PC login and found out it must be the same. Why if you are setting up a "child" with their user, why would they need to have their own email address, own microsoft account etc.... this is stupid. If they are minors.. esp under 13 they should not have or even need these things... you can't even setup a facebook or google account unless 13.. yet microsoft wants us to set it up for them with a easy work around? The first OS that comes up with a decent way to actually protect my kids with built in parental controls that actually WORK will have my loyalty instead of these Quasi pathetic parental controls.... might as well not even have them at all.

EDIT: Currently 12/11/16 if you create a PIN # for the sign in option you can then change the children's microsoft family password - then they will not be able to change or need to know that password. They will even need to know that password in order to change their pin #. Just make sure when you see it up all you go into "verify" them on each computer it is setup and far as I know the PIN must be setup each time on each computer you set it up. I dont know why it does not snyc. The pin is a local only thing i guess but it does work to safe gaurd them from unlocking the pc via "sign in with local account".... its worth mentioning that there are other options listed they might be able to try that i have not tested, "sign up with new microsoft account" and "sign into teacher or school - something" < those are not exact / just from memory...

tapmyhed · 16 Oct 2017

Old thread I know but worth bumping as this very thing happened to me. fix was easy as follows:
1. Create a new email account on google
2. Link local account back to new google account
3. varify MS account to google account
4. change child account to admin account (you are the admin)
5. log into child account
6. update registry regedit for current user, software, microsoft, current version, policies and create a control panel disallowed list (google it) and add 'user accounts' to. You have to logout and log back in to see it working.
7. go back to your admin account.
8. Make your child aco**** standard again.
9. to stop child from changing to local account in windows charms do this:
10. go to windows system (and sysWOW64) folders, look for userbrowser....exe files (so there are 2 of them)
11. select properties, security, select advanced.
12. take ownership
13. select security again, select admin, select RW
14. rename the file by adding .bak to the end.
15 Child can not run charm account changes now.
16. log back into child account select account in pc settings in charms, select log in with PIN
17. give them a pin number, eneter your child MS password (do not give them this)
18. log out
19.TEST...select child user, and select PIN entry.
20. log in, open computer settings, you should not see user accounts option.
21. use charms, local select will not open user account settings.

Thats it. Its a bit messy, but google regedit, DISallow and follow the registry settings guide...it is very simple. Make sure you do it to your child account. Dont give your kid your 'kids' ms account/emailo account linked to it...its only used for loggin in to the PC, they can have a seperate email account for general day to day.

October 2017...I just found out about this and it annoyed my my kid could bypass the settings.....hence this update to you parents out there. Good luck.

Bypass Family Settings by conversion to Local Account

Get it fixed

The same issue for me too!

The other idea :)