How To Track User Activity on Windows Computer

Whether you’re planning to track the activity of your employees or children, there are certain built-in Windows features you can combine with monitoring software for the most effective approach.

If you happen to be using a Windows workgroup to connect your employee’s devices, you can use certain administrative features to track user activity. The two key features you should be aware of are Audit Policy, which allows you to monitor user activity, and Event Viewer, which will enable you to read a log of any security events that occurred on the network.

To set up Audit Policy, you only need to take a few simple steps:

1. Press Win + R simultaneously to open the Run app. Type and enter secpol.msc, and wait for the Local Security Policy window to open.
2. Security Settings > Local Policies > Audit Policy. Look for the audit entries set to no editing. Once you’ve opened the first one, click on the Local Security Setting tab.
3. Under “audit these attempts,” click the checkboxes for success and failure. Click apply and OK to finalize the new setting before repeating for each entry set to no editing.

Similarly, tracking user activity using the Event Viewer feature is simple.

1. Press Win + R simultaneously to open the Run app. Type and enter eventvwr and press enter. The Event Viewer application should open.
2. Windows Logs > Security. You can click on any of the security events to see more information. You can use the Event ID to determine what action was recorded.

Windows has plenty of great features meant to help parents monitor and protect their children, too. To take advantage of these features, all you need to do is configure your child’s user account to have parental controls in the Family settings.

To start, you need to create an account for your child. If your child already has a user account, you can enter the email they signed up with to register their account for parental controls. Here are the steps you’ll need to take to register your child:

1. Settings > Accounts > Family & other users. Click on the add a family member button and wait for the registration screen to open.
2. Enter the email your child uses for their Microsoft account into the registration prompt. If they don’t already have an account, click create one for a child and then enter the email address you would like your child to use.
3. Enter the prompted information for your child’s new account, including their password, name, and birthday. Then, sign in to the account. A prompt will appear to confirm parent or guardian consent for the account’s creation.
4. Click I’m a parent or guardian to confirm the account’s creation. Sign in to the Microsoft account you intend to use for monitoring and sign the consent form when prompted.
5. Configure the parental controls for your child’s new account. If you would like to monitor your child, you should activate activity reporting and web and search filters.

Next, you’ll need to sign in to your child’s new Microsoft account on the device you would like them to use. To monitor their Microsoft account, you can navigate to the settings of your own Microsoft account online and view their activity in the Family Safety tab.