Exactly this time last year, a Lagos based Nigerian Mr. Tunde Makhinde was able to track the location of arm robbers who invaded his property with his stolen iPad. Still last year, an amazing iPhone app, Find my iphone, was used to track down a stolen iPad and the man who allegedly took it from underneath a family’s Christmas tree in the US. The victim on the ‘Find my iPhone’ app that sends out a signal to the device.Using his computer, the victim was then able to locate the iPad on a map, and alerted police to its whereabouts – just a few houses away.
This is something that is almost synonymous with Apple devices. However, this time, Microsoft is taking over the spotlight with their new ‘Find My Device’ feature introduced in November Windows 10 update. The new Microsoft invention is not just for tablets or phones. Any Windows 10 device can take advantage of the new feature, including desktops and laptops.
Although the current version of ‘find my device’ may not take your breath away or have your tablet make a sound, lock itself, erase data, or anything like that when stolen – it’s still a great feature to keep tabs of your device’s location and capture its thief – if needed.
To active this feature go to Start > Update & Security > Find My Device.
On this screen you’ll see a big Change button under the heading “Find My Device is off.”
Once you click Change you’ll see a pop-up panel that says “Save my device’s location periodically.” Turn the slider to On and you’re done.
You should now see that the Find My Device screen has changed to “Find My Device is on” as seen above.
To make sure everything is working, login to account.microsoft.com/devices with your Microsoft account and you should see the name of your PC listed under “Your devices.”
If you don’t know the name of your device, right-click on the Start button and selectSystem. In the Control Panel window that opens you’ll see it under “Computer name.”