Subscribe

Get the Network Administrators tool pack

Subscribe to our newsletter and get 11 free network administrator tools, plus a 30 page user guide so you can get the most out of them.

Click Here to get your free tools

Recent Posts

Search

Archives

IE Parental Controls – How to remove them

by Steve Wiseman on November 5, 2007 · 7 comments

in Windows


.

I don’t know if it is a bug in IE, or if my Nephews are playing a game with me. Suddenly over the weekend I started to get prompted for the parental controls password

Content Advisor Disable

Hmm. I do not know the password…since I never set one. If I try to turn it off or modify it by going into Internet Explorer settings…

Disable Content Advisor

Quick search of the net and I discover that you can simply browse to this key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

See the key that says Ratings?

Ratings Remove Registry

When I deleted it I was able to get back into IE again.

Now I can browse to any site I want, without being asked for a password.

Update: Just got a note from a reader:

Steve,
Um…you just told my kids how to get around the parental controls. Thanks!

David

David – Actually not. If you only allow your kids to have a non administrator account they cannot access the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key in the registry.

One more thing…Subscribe to my newsletter and get 11 free network administrator tools, plus a 30 page user guide so you can get the most out of them. Click Here to get your free tools

Related Articles:

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Frank June 24, 2010 at 10:02 pm

Worked great, thanks a lot.

2 Anonamous April 28, 2011 at 9:58 pm

So does this also eliminate time restrictions?

3 giany August 1, 2011 at 12:28 am

i cant find it please help me…..can you guide me step by step pplease……..
my daughter messed it up and cant fix it.

4 karen belll November 10, 2011 at 9:38 am

how can i unstal parental control without mesing up other wrbsites

5 Steve Wiseman November 10, 2011 at 9:44 am

Not sure what you mean…either it is on or off. It does not mess up websites.

6 anna April 14, 2012 at 10:32 pm

Hey I got all of the way up to the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and when I looked for the ratings folder it was not there.It had the folders hardware,security,sam,software,system, and wpa. Can you please help me?

7 Steve Wiseman April 18, 2012 at 9:17 am

Hello Anna,

If it does not exist, you need to create it. In this situation it means that the parental controls are not set in that key…so I am not sure where they would be on your system.

What version of IE, and what version of Windows do you have?

Steve

Leave a Comment

Category Links - Windows Forum - Exchange Forum