Yep, I'm aware with what's involved. That's why I said optional. ;-)
As a system builder who will be marketing his own OEM WHS product, I will be implementing this myself among several other add-ins. It would just be nice if we didn't have to. But it's a trivial amount of work; I already have the code in a standalone client to wake up other PC's via WOL; moving it into an add-in is easy.
I understand the reason MS didn't put it in wasn't because it is hard (it's not). It's all about usability. I get that. But as an option that can be safely ignored if you don't know what it is, it would be nice to be there for those who do. As such including it wouldn't affect the overall product negatively if exposed properly. It's called an Advanced button and pop-up dialog. If you aren't "Advanced", you don't belong in there. This metaphor is used throughout Windows.
FYI, most PC's these days that have WOL capability typically have it enabled by default in BIOS. My product line currently leverages 4 motherboards from 2 different manufacturers, and WOL exists and is on by default in all of them. But on the other hand, I know Dell home based PC's for example have it off by default, and turning it on is not easy. But hey...buy a Dell, get what you pay for. ;-P
As far as network configuration, the three cheap home-based routers I have used over the years all pass the magic packet frame across the LAN subnet with no issues, by default (ie no config needed). Since WHS is really designed for single-subnet use on it's LAN, this isn't a problem, as if your local PC's span subnets you're going to have other WHS issues anyway. The vast majority of routers will allow these packets to pass as long as they were generated within the subnet. They would techically be broken not to. If you get into larger home network using older routers, you again run into problems. But again this would be a minority of users.
But by far the biggest issue is getting WOL to work remotely, as it would require advanced undertaking and confguration of the router, and depending upon the router, may not even be possible (likely for dirt-cheap home-market routers). This is the other sub-feature that will be in the add-in: you will be able to remotely turn on computers on your home network indireclty through WHS by having it send the WOL packet on your behalf.
Today, WHS can't do this. If my computer at home is dead-cold and I forgot to copy something off it before I left for work, I'm hosed. With this add-in, you'll be able to turn your computer on at home so you can get that data. I believe that feature is powerful enough that many users (but certainly not all) would go through the hoops necessary to do the configuration steps requred to enable it. But, with stock WHS, they don't have that option.
Ryan
