Covid-19 has forced many of us to start working remotely. You may be using a VPN, then remoting into your desktop or laptop at work or using some other technology to reach your company’s internal network resources. But what if your machine at work is powered off? What do you do if you don’t have any other option but to drive out to your office to turn on your PC or laptop at work during the shelter-in-place orders? That’s were Wake-On-LAN (WoL) comes to the rescue.
Before we get started discussing this option, please be aware that not all machines will have this capability, and you’ll need to verify that your system or systems have this ability enabled if supported. You’ll want to consult your manufacturer’s documentation for specific instructions to enable this feature.
If your machine or machines do not have this capability, the other thing to do is to make sure that you leave your device on at all times and that you change the Power & Sleep settings within Windows to Never turn off your computer. Of course, this doesn’t help if you accidentally power off your machine or if there’s a sudden power loss. Your only choice at that point will be to get a machine that supports WoL.
The overall steps to get WoL configured and use it are:
- Enable the option in BIOS or UEFI. Not all machines will have this option, or your computer may always have this feature enabled with no visible configurable option listed. Additional sleep settings may have to be adjusted for specific makes and models.
- Enable it within Windows Device Manager for the specific NIC you have configured for network access on your device.
- Choose your method to send the magic packet. You can do this via PowerShell using a specific module, or you can download a small, single-purpose application that will do this for you. If you’re in a medium to a large corporate environment, you can use SCCM to send it to one or many machines.
Manufacturer Required Settings
Due to the vast amount of manufacturers of motherboards, BIOS versions, network card adapters, and other configurations, it’s not always easy to get Wol configured. You’ll need to look deep in your system’s documentation for any known issues if it’s not working, or call your manufacturer.
Here’s a small list of step-by-step configurations from 3 of the top vendors to get you started:
- Dell – How to setup Wake on LAN (WOL) on your Dell System
- HP – Wake On LAN Does Not Work After Windows 10 Upgrade is Performed
- Lenovo – How to enable Wake on LAN
Got a whole office that needs to be enabled for Wake-on-Lan? Don’t want your employees to have to go into the office because one or more machines were accidentally powered down? Let us help you to keep your employees stay safe. Give us a call.