That's what I thought you might be doing. So, there are a few options. You
can put in run restrictions for certain programs as you tried. It's not like
you are trying to protect state secrets, so the limits you have here will
have reasonable effect. If your kid is at all inventive (and about 12 or
older; 8 if they are anything like one of mine) they'll figure out a way to
disable it though. I would really recommend you get one of the parental
control programs for this type of work. They can be circumvented too, but
they enable some additional controls, and make all of it a lot easier.
If you decide to do this manually, here are some hints. First, if you put
the restrictions in the "Computer Configuration" option they become
systemwide. You need to put them in the User Configuration to make them take
effect for only one user. That means, of course, that you need to log on as
that user to create the restrictions, and naturally that user can undo the
restrictions. From a security perspective, we consider these voluntary
restrictions. The user will only be restricted if s/he consents to be
restricted.
Second, much of what you want is under "User configuration:Administrative
templates:Windows Components:Windows Explorer," "User
configuration:Administrative templates:Control Panel," and "User
configuration:Administrative templates:System" settings." Particularly the
control panel restrictions and the "Do not run specified Windows
applications" settings are useful.
You cannot limit internet connection time with any built-in tools. You need
add-on tools for that, or a network with a real Windows server. Parental
control programs help there. Sorry, but I can't give you any recommendations
though. I don't use them personally. I have a full network at home, and use
the good old-fashioned eye-ball-on-child supervision method for anything
beyond that.
If you make the kid a limited user they will be pretty well restricted from
horking up the system without any additional modifications. That said, their
games probably won't run either. What I do is create a "games" account that
is allowed to play the games, but also has some group policy applied to it to
limit access to Internet Explorer. Those restrictions are of course
voluntary, as I mentioned earlier, but you can associate consequences to
violations to make them a bit more likely to be adhered to.
If you can wait a little while, Windows Vista has far better built-in
parental controls than Windows XP.
