What setting up do I need to do for “Find My Phone” to work?

Question

I'm trying to set up my phone so that "Find My Phone" will work.

A couple of things are confusing:

Firstly:
The interface on the phone has two checkboxes which suggest they don't need to checked, just that it'll work better.

actually the wording on my device is slightly different but the meaning is the same

But when I try the service with both of these unchecked, the service didn't work (in that my little test at windowsphone.com reported that "Sorry we couldn't find your phone, please try later"). When I try it with them checked, it does find the phone. And yet the wording is highly suggestive that they're optional.

Secondly:
After getting it working once, I then persisted with a few more tests and windowsphone.com threw up this screen:

... in which the text 1) suggests filling this in is a mandatory preliminary for Find My Phone to work (it isn't, since I had already got it to work once, without ever filling this in) and 2) is highly unclear whether checking the I authorise Microsoft ... checkbox is a prerequisite for Find My Phone to work.

Can anyone help make all this simple. As a bare minimum what do I need activate on on the phone, and what do I need to activate at windowsphone.com for all this to work?

Answer 1

I am speaking as a user in the United States, and what I have experienced. I see you are in the UK so your mileage may vary. I doubt it, but just keep that in mind.

The bare minimum you need is the first checkbox. Once you do that your phone will periodically report its location to the find my phone service and you will be able to use it.

The second check box just makes it more accurate. From what I understand it will report more frequently, and respond quicker. It comes at the cost of battery life.

As far as the prompt you got, I had to fill that out only when I didn't have the second checkbox selected. I can't say if that is the intended behavior, but it is what I noticed.

Again I want to state that this is what I have noticed the handful of timed I used the service. Perhaps someone else can provide more insight.