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A mate of mine has lost a laptop on a bus and wishes to find it. As far as I know, Windows 10 offers GPS tracking features, but that has to be turned on before the device was lost. The laptop was an Acer and it had no accessories installed that could be identified for location (e.g. no sim or usb net). It had Windows defender on it and the user always had to log in by using username and password to accounts like Facebook (so no auto login with kept pw). As far as we know, the anti-theft feature of Win10 was not turned on (to be frank it was on default, it was not tempered with).
The laptop did have a password on it so my best bet is that it will be booted from a pendrive in order the "founder" to use.
My questions for this are the following:
- Is it possible to turn on GPS remotely by using the same account on another device (like turn on on all devices)?
- If the OS is reinstalled it is lost for ever?
- Is it possible to contact the vendor to try to identify the device by location?
EDIT
When attempting to log in, the owner was prompted "too many unsuccessful attempts to log in" which means the thieves tried to log in. Does win10 have a feature that enables geolocation in this case?
ANOTHER EDIT
Is it viable to let the thieves have the laptop in order to trigger the geolocation? no bank data/facebook/gmail etc is logged in on the laptop.
YET ANOTHER EDIT
She actually can log in into her MS account after confirming it with a separate email address. Note that it was the account only, not remoting to the machine. Like one logs in from another pc to check on the mails. In fact she could change her password to her account. By the morning she used the machine and it did display her location (it's evening here at the moment). What we came up with - as there are no bank data or social media accounts logged in on the laptop - we should let the thieves log in in order for the laptop to show its location. To do this, we plan to use that Win 10 synchronizes one's profile settings on all machines - like if I change my wallpaper on this machine, it changes on the other one. Does it mean if I remove the need to password to login on this machine, it will remove the need on the stolen one? So that the thieves could log in and the laptop's location shows up?
agiro
Posted 2017-04-14T19:43:44.830
Reputation: 133
The other thing we came up with was removing the PW and letting them in to show location (she was using her pc by the morning and the device location was shown on microsoft tracker) but AFAIK to remove the PW needed to log in, you need to psysically access the laptop, right? – agiro – 2017-04-14T20:55:49.547
She actually can access her acc - she already chaged her PW once in order to log in (acc was disabled due to multiple attempts of login). And yes, the machine is connected to a MS acc. So you say she could remove the need for PW on a device far away? – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:00:45.707
One more thing - giving them a VERY easy password they can easily crack? If the PW can't be removed on a device far away? – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:02:21.773
@Ramhound Or via shared settings? Like, when I use the same acc on two different machines, if I change wallpaper here, it changed there. Is it the same for password demand? If I turn it off on this machine, it's off on the other one? – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:11:16.510
But she made it into the acc after confirming it with a separate email address using her phone. If we could let them log in and thus locate the machine it would be an answer. So the shared settings idea, please? Would it work? – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:13:49.493
Or shall I ask another question here to keep things organized? We strayed a bit off topic I admit. – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:14:42.970
Yes, it unfolded along the way, literally 10 seconds ago :D we are trying our best here – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:15:16.083
Don't submit another question just improve this question because another question will be just a duplicate of this question. – Ramhound – 2017-04-14T21:15:47.273
Fair enough. I include what happened so far. – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:16:17.153
Update the question. But you can use geolocation and google maps much easier then worry about gps. – Ramhound – 2017-04-14T21:17:36.670
Even on a machine not logged in? If so, how? – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:22:22.037
You indicated you had remote access to the device in question. – Ramhound – 2017-04-14T21:27:48.323
I must have expressed meself incorrect then. She could log in to her MS account only. Not the machine itself. Like I log in to my acc from another pc, say, for checking on my mails, but not actually the device itself. – agiro – 2017-04-14T21:30:19.717