How to set up parental controls on Windows 11

The reliable way to set up parental controls on Windows 11 is two layers: a standard (non-admin) account for your child, and device-level content filtering that covers every browser and app on the PC. The account controls the machine. The filter controls what reaches it. Here is the whole thing, start to finish, with no tech background needed.

What are the two layers, and why both?

Windows 11 gives you account controls: you can make your child a standard user, and Microsoft Family Safety can add screen time limits and age settings. That layer is worth setting up, and it is free.

What it does not give you is content filtering that holds up across the whole machine. The built-in web filtering only works inside Microsoft Edge. Open a different browser and it is no longer filtering anything. So the second layer, filtering that sits below every app, is the one that actually decides what content can load.

Set both. The account keeps your child off the admin controls. The filter keeps the harmful and adult stuff from arriving in the first place.

How do I create a standard child account?

On the PC, open Settings, go to Accounts, then Family (or Other users). Add your child, and when Windows asks for an account type, choose Standard, not Administrator.

This one choice matters more than any single setting. A standard account cannot install system software, change protected settings, or uninstall the tools you put in place. Keep the administrator account for yourself, with a password your child does not have. Everything else in this guide depends on that.

How do I filter content across every browser and app?

This is the layer Edge-only controls miss. FamilyProtect installs filtering at the network level on the PC, so it covers every browser, every game, and every app at once, before a page loads.

The setup is short:

1. Create your FamilyProtect account and sign in to your dashboard, then choose Add a device for the guided setup.
2. Get the installer onto the child’s PC one of two ways: download the installer (.msi) and move it across yourself, or create a 24-hour link, a short web address you type into a browser on the child’s PC that downloads the installer there with no sign-in. Either way, run it once with an administrator account. Full steps are in installing FamilyProtect on a Windows PC.
3. Switch on DNS Protection in your dashboard. It rolls out to the PC on its own, usually within a few minutes.

From then on, when your child reaches a harmful or adult site, the address lookup is refused and the page never loads. There is nothing to configure browser by browser, because the filtering happens underneath all of them. The full technical walkthrough is in how DNS Protection works on Windows.

Why isn’t a browser setting enough?

Because a browser setting only sees one browser. A capable kid does not need a clever trick to get past it. They open a different browser, and the filter that lived inside the first one never runs.

Device-level filtering sits below every browser, so there is no second-browser loophole. It also travels with the laptop: school Wi-Fi, a library, or a phone hotspot all go through the same rules, because the filtering is on the PC, not on your home router.

Can my child just switch it off?

Not from a standard account. FamilyProtect deploys with a locked configuration that a non-admin user cannot change or uninstall, and it verifies continuously that protection is still running. If something breaks it, it repairs itself. That is the difference between a setting your child can toggle and protection that stays on.

How long does the whole setup take?

About fifteen minutes, most of it waiting for the PC to appear in your dashboard. The account change is a couple of minutes. The installer finishes in under a minute. The filter reaches the PC a few minutes after that. Then it holds without you touching it again.

One subscription covers every Windows PC in your home, so if you have more than one machine you run the same installer on each. See pricing for what a household costs.

Ready to add the layer that browser settings miss? Get started and protection reaches your first PC in minutes.