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About this tool
Set up a Windows child account with Microsoft Family Safety: standard-user rights, Edge-only web filtering, app limits and a weekly screen-time total.
The Windows Family Account Setup Guide walks through creating a child account in Microsoft Family Safety and making it stick: the child's own Microsoft account inside your family group, a standard-user Windows profile rather than an administrator, screen time and allowed-hours schedules, age rating limits for the Microsoft Store, and purchase approval. It is built around the two facts that catch most parents out — an administrator account can uninstall every control, and Microsoft's web filtering works only in Microsoft Edge, so switching it on blocks other browsers for that account by design. It also converts the weekday and weekend daily limits into the weekly and yearly totals they really mean.
Open Windows Family Account Setup Guide on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Enter the child's age in years (3-17) and the school-night and weekend limits in minutes a day; the table then lists each day's limit.
Work through the four checklist groups — Create the child account, Set screen time and schedules, Filter web, apps and games, and Spending and review — ticking each step as you do it.
The Setup score is held at 69% while a Critical step such as the standard-user account is open; read Screen time a week and Hours a year at this rate, then press Copy result.
Standard-user rights are treated as critical, because an administrator can undo everything else.
Web filtering blocking Chrome and Firefox is flagged before you switch it on, not discovered mid-homework.
Two daily figures become a weekly total, a daily average and an annual figure worth discussing.
Almost always because their Windows account is an administrator. An administrator can uninstall filtering, create another local account and switch off Defender. Change the account to Standard user in Settings > Accounts > Family & other users, and the rest of the controls start holding.
Yes, when web and search filtering is on. Microsoft enforces filtering only inside Microsoft Edge, so it blocks other browsers on the child's account rather than letting them browse unfiltered. Tell the child before you turn it on, and check whether the school's tools work in Edge.
Family Safety takes a separate schedule for each day of the week, combining a daily total with a window of allowed hours. Set the school-night figure Monday to Friday and a longer one on Saturday and Sunday, and use the allowed-hours window rather than the total to protect sleep.
Turn on the requirement for organiser approval before anything is bought or downloaded from the Microsoft Store, including free items, and take saved cards off the child's account so gift-card balance is the only spending route. In-game currency inside a free title is the usual source of a surprise bill.