Restrict a User’s Logon Hours on XP

This tip is probably most useful for family computers with households with kids who use the computer, with you wanting to monitor/restrict their computer usage to some degree.

Basically, you have to define (via command line) the hours that the user is allowed to login.

Go to Start > Run and type cmd.  You can specify the hours in the following ways:

First, this limits the user “bobby” to login Monday – Friday between 8am and 5pm using military time:

net user bobby /time:M-F,08:00-17:00

This does the same as above, but using a 12-hour clock:

net user bobby /time:M-F,8am-5pm

And here’s a more expressive command where you can mix and match and specify different times for different days:

net user bobby /time:M,4pm-7pm;T-TH,16:00-18:00;F-SU,11am-9pm

These commands restrict a user from logging on…they do not force a logoff when a user is already logged in.  These logon hours do not have an effect Administrator level accounts.

To remove the time restrictions, type this in the CMD window:

net user bobby /time:all

You can look at Microsoft’s official documentation of the /time option here

(Originally published on pcmech.com)