Question from Andrea L.: Hi Rick. I have a problem and I’m betting you might be able to help me solve it.
My 4 year old daughter likes playing the games on the PBS Kids website (http://pbskids.org). The problem is she isn’t the best at controlling the mouse yet and she sometimes accidentally leaves Internet Explorer and starts click in places where she doesn’t need to be clicking. Last night I caught her clicking around the Control Panel!
Is there a way to force her to stay within the confines of the web browser? The computer runs Windows 7 if that makes a difference. Thanks so much for your help!
Rick’s answer: Andrea, I.E. has a feature that does exactly what you’re needing to do, and it’s very easy to set up. It’s called Kiosk Mode, and you can create a Desktop shortcut that will start the browser in Kiosk Mode automatically. Here’s how:
1 – Right-click on the Desktop and click New>Shortcut.
2 – Copy and paste the following into the Location box:
“C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe” -k -nohome http://pbskids.org/
3 – Click Next.
4 – Name the shortcut PBS Kids and then click the Finish button.
From now on you can simply click the new PBS Kids shortcut to launch Internet Explorer in Kiosk Mode with the PBS Kids website already loaded. Your little girl can then click to her heart’s content without you having to worry about her exiting the browser window.
Note: The only way to exit Kiosk Mode is to actually exit the browser itself by pressing the Alt+F4 key combination. (And in your case this is a good thing.)
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