Is the bypass user utility per Windows user or per PC?
The information I'm reading is a little conflicted so I thought I'd just ask. I'm thinking of buying a NetGear router with the parental controls, but I wanted to clarify how it is used first.
My situation is that we have several PCs in the house, with multiple people using each PC.
If I log on to the PC, and then log on to the parental controls bypass, what happens if I switch users so my son can log on at the same time? Does he get my bypass settings?
The manual says that you need to explicitly log off otherwise the settings persist even if the PC is rebooted, which implies that it is a per-PC setting in the router, but other advertising info suggests that you can have multiple people on the same PC and they can each have their own bypass settings.
If it's a per-PC setting then this service is basically useless for us, which would be a shame as it looks very good otherwise.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
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You install the User Utility on computers where you want to use bypass accounts. Bypass accounts are per user (on this computer or any other computer where the User Utility is installed). But as the documentation says, there is a risk that another user uses the bypass account which was used by the previous user before if this user didn't explictly logout from the bypass account (not from the computer).
" what happens if I switch users so my son can log on at the same time? Does he get my bypass settings?"
Yes, this can happen if you didn't logout from the bypass account.
"If it's a per-PC setting then this service is basically useless for us"
What prevents you from logging out of your bypass account?
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Many thanks for your prompt reply - it confirmed what I thought: That the marketing blurb is ... marketing. With a tenuous grounding in the truth ;-)
In answer to your question, my son uses my wife's PC and realistically she is not going to remember to log out every time she leaves. Her standard action is to walk away from her PC and let the screen saver kick in after a couple of minutes, locking her user. As she has been doing this for the last 10-15 years I think it's highly unlikely that I'll be able to get her to change. We will often have 3 people logged on to the PC at the same time (obviously not using it at the same time though).
The question I have to decide now is whether we can work with and/or adapt the existing functionality. One option I'm thinking of is to write a utility that will automatically log in and out when we switch users. This is feasible, but may be more hassle than it's worth.
Anyway, thanks again for your reply.
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The Windows user utility can be downloaded here: http://www.opendns.com/downloads/. You can also use the NETGEAR Genie to log into bypass accounts on other devices, Genie can be downloaded here: http://www.netgear.com/home/discover/apps/genie.aspx
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