S mode lenovo laptop

paul2louise

I bought my 9 year old son a lenovo idea pad 3 for Christmas  with a view to all the zoom and home schooling that was imminent.  We keep having audio microphone issues. I reset the internal microphone it works for a bit then stops working. I went on a microsoft community help chat and discovered that the version was out of date. I couldnt update without leaving S mode which i was worried  about as you cant go back. I was getting so fed up i did leave s mode and updated the laptop. But what is the score with this S mode. If the laptop doesnt work properly after a month for simple things then what is the point of it. I have googled it but dont really understand it. I want to protect my sons laptop as 9 year olds dont care about stuff they install and things they click on look exciting.

Thanks 

pbartlett

s-mode is simply a locked-down version of windows - you can't install anything on it unless from the windows store, hence no malware, viruses etc. It's the 'walled garden' approach. For example, no bespoke apps from your school etc

your microphone problems are unlikely to have been related to s-mode.

now you are out of s-mode you will have to educate your son to be careful what he installs.

you can create a 'user' account for him and change the password on the admin account he and you are currently using so he doesn't know it. User accounts are much more restrictive. Only let him use the device logged in as that user.

also, under 'settings' / 'apps' there is a drop-down box which you can set to restrict where your son can download and install apps from

paul2louise

pbartlett said:

s-mode is simply a locked-down version of windows - you can't install anything on it unless from the windows store, hence no malware, viruses etc. It's the 'walled garden' approach. For example, no bespoke apps from your school etc

your microphone problems are unlikely to have been related to s-mode.

now you are out of s-mode you will have to educate your son to be careful what he installs.

you can create a 'user' account for him and change the password on the admin account he and you are currently using so he doesn't know it. User accounts are much more restrictive. Only let him use the device logged in as that user.

also, under 'settings' / 'apps' there is a drop-down box which you can set to restrict where your son can download and install apps from

Seems a bit pointless if you cant update the windows version you are running. I couldnt find a way to do this without breaking out of S mode

pbartlett

windows update works in s mode