Classic Parental Control (for Windows)

The project provides utility which allows you to establish/maintain Parental Control for Local Accounts in Windows 10.

• LogonHoursManager is a GUI application to easily change to change the allowed logon hours
• LogonHoursService it a service which monitors the allowed logon hours and locks the session once the time is over

The allowed logon hours are the ones you can set with a command like net user USERNAME /time:M-F,10-18.

Compilation

You need VS2019 with v142 toolkit to build the solution.

The project can also be built with other versions of VisualStuido after tuning the properties:

1. Copy _props\user\_Platform.props.IN to _props\user\_Platform.props

2. Adjust PlatformToolset to specify available/desired toolset:

   <PropertyGroup Label="Configuration">  
     <PlatformToolset>v141</PlatformToolset> <!-- VS2017 -->  
   </PropertyGroup>
   

Installation

Manager

The application doesn't require any special installation.

Service

1. Copy all binaries from the archive into a directory with read-only access to Everyone, so only Administrators can remove or update them (if needed).
2. Run LogonHoursService from command line (with any permissions) for testing purposes, close its console window after ~5 seconds and examine the log in %TEMP%\LogonHoursService.log. The log should start with something like this:
   2021.11.28 02:31:03,322 [INFO] [2672] wmain: ========================================
2021.11.28 02:31:03,323 [INFO] [2672] wmain: Log initialized successfully
2021.11.28 02:31:03,323 [INFO] [2672] wmain: Version: 1.0.0 Alpha
2021.11.28 02:31:03,323 [INFO] [2672] wmain: Build : Nov 27 2021 20:16:40
2021.11.28 02:31:03,323 [INFO] [2672] wmain: _MSC_FULL_VER: 19.29.30133
3. As Administrator install the service by executing LogonHoursService --install.
4. Start the service manually.
5. Try setting time restrictions for a local user profile with a command like net user USERNAME /time:M,12-13.
6. Check whether the session of USERNAME is locked when the specified time is over (take a look into the service log in %windir%\Temp\LogonHoursService.log)
7. If everything works as expected, enable autostart for the service.

Troubleshooting

Enable verbose logging

You can enable verbose logging by placing a file with name LogonHoursService.exe.log4cpp (into the directory with the executable) with the content like:
log4cpp.rootCategory=DEBUG

The application writes its log into %TEMP%\LogonHoursService.log (%TEMP% is %windir%\Temp for Local System account).

Enable Local Dumps creation

Dump files (.dmp) are very useful when you need to investigate an occasional crash.

Add registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps (refer to the article Collecting User-Mode Dumps for more details).

After local dumps are enabled, you will be able to find the dump under %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps next time the crash happens.

If you're running the service under Local System account, its dumps are generated under %windir%\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\CrashDumps or %windir%\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\CrashDumps (for 32-bit services on 64-bit system)

Missing clang_rt.asan_dbg_dynamic-i386.dll in Debug configuration

Both projects have now Address Sanitizer enabled in Debug configuration (refer to <EnableASAN>true</EnableASAN> in \_props\Cxx.props), so when running them not from VisualStudio IDE the system may complain about missing clang_rt.asan_dbg_dynamic-i386.dll (for Win32 platform).

It is enough to copy the required DLL from VisualStudio platform toolset directory (something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.29.30133\bin\Hostx86\x86) to the directory with the executable.

Supported Windows versions

This project is intended to be useful in Windows 10, where you cannot easily establish parental control for Local Accounts.

Though the built-in classic parental control is available in Windows 7/8.1, you still can make use of this project.

(!) For Windows 7/8.1 you may need to install KB2999226, if the system complains about missing api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll:

History

1.1.0 Alpha (10.05.2023)

• LogonHoursManager is available

1.0.3 Alpha (28.01.2022)

• DailyRollingFileAppender is used instead of RollingFileAppender
• log4cpp package upgrade from 1.1.3.1 to 1.1.3.3

1.0.2 Alpha (20.01.2022)

• Fixed stack overflow caused by T2A/USES_CONVERSION macro

1.0.1 Alpha (10.12.2021)

• Fixed calculation of remaining seconds for a session