Richard J. Prinz

Some Windows Mobile 6.x phones have a very nice feature which allows you to get notified if someone removes your SIM card from your phone (e.g. in case it was lost or stolen) and inserts another one. Unfortunately this feature is buried very deep in config menus for example on a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone (Samsung Omnia B-7350). It’s called uTrack or MobileTracker.
This post shows a step by step guide how to enable this feature and what happens in case of a SIM change.

There are two ways to configure uTrack. The official longer one and a shorter, unofficial one. For the unofficial you have to install Total Commander on your phone. It’s a file manager which shows and allows you more then the built in file manager. The standard Windows file manager won’t show you everything (Img. 1). Now browse to your phones Windows folder where you will find a file named MobileTracker.exe (Img. 2)

(Img. 1)	(Img. 2)

Create a shortcut for convenience or start it directly from within Total Commander and you will be presented with a status screen. (continue with Img. 8)

The official way to use uTrack is open your phone’s settings first. The screen shots are in German but it should be easy to follow these steps.

(Img. 3)	(Img. 4)	(Img. 5)	(Img. 6)

Click More (Weitere) to see more options (Img. 7). It does not matter how you start uTrack. After it is started you will be presented with screen (Img. 8). If you start uTrack for the first time you have to specify a password. After this you have to enter it when starting uTrack (Img. 9)

(Img. 7)	(Img. 8)	(Img. 9)

And this is uTracks main screen. It’s simple. All you have to enter is is a phone number to which a SMS will be sent in case a SIM card change is detected by uTrack. WARNING: This should NOT be your own phone number but another one like that of your partner! In the sender field you can enter any text you want to identify your phone so for example “my phone” or whatever.

(Img. 10)

Now activate uTrack and from now on every time another SIM card is inserted in your phone a SMS is sent to the configured phone which provides you with the IMEI of the phone and the phone number of the new SIM. So you can call your own phone under the new number and ask whoever answers the call to give you your phone back.

The SMS you will receive on the configured number will look something like this:

From: +4312345668
Please save this message.
Sender: samsung phone
IMEI: 35455740497251509

Where From: is the phone number connected with the new SIM card in your phone. Call this number to contact the new “owner”. Sender: is the configured name and IMEI: is the serial number of your phone.

There are far more powerfull sollutions to detect and even control a lost or stolen phone. This is called MDM (Mobile Device Management) But uTrack is built in and free so why not use it?