By using the technique described in this tech-recipe, you can limit when your children or your employees are able to use a system.

Limiting login access is very beneficial in multiple circumstances. My children have personal accounts on our home box and log-in to the Internet from these accounts. Using this technique, I can make sure that they can log-in only during certain times of the day (as in when I can supervise them). Additionally, several computers at my office had unwanted programs installed on them at night. Some employees were staying all night surfing and absorbing bandwidth. This technique limits their use to more appropriate hours.

The steps used to activate limitations are as follows:

1. Click on the Start Menu.
2. Click Run.
3. Type CMD in the Open textbox and click OK.
4. In the command window type:
net user accountname /times:M-F,8am-8pm; Sa,8am-5pm;Su,8am-1pm
Replace accountname with the name of the account you wish to limit. The time command is a bit complex, but the above example is easy to replace with the appropriate values. Below, you will find further information from Microsoft regarding the format of the time command:

Specifies the times that users are allowed to use the computer. Time is limited to 1-hour increments. For the day values, you can spell out or use abbreviations (that is, M,T,W,Th,F,Sa,Su). You can use 12-hour or 24-hour notation for hours. If you use 12-hour notation, use AM and PM, or A.M. and P.M. The value all means a user can always log on. A null value (blank) means a user can never log on. Separate day and time with commas, and units of day and time with semicolons (for example, M,4AM-5PM;T,1PM-3PM). Do not use spaces when designating times.

The steps to turn off limitations are as follows:
1. Click on the Start Menu.
2. Click Run.
3. Type CMD in the Open textbox and click OK.
4. In the command window type:
net user accountname /times:all
Once again, replace accountname with the name of the account you wish to change.