Windows Home Server will wake up computers in your home in order to perform backup functions. Automated backup is one of the core capabilities of Windows Home Server. By default, WHS is designed to backup the machines in a household on a daily basis, usually after midnight. According to Todd Headrick, the product planner for the Microsoft Windows Home Server, the data will be compared and backed up only once even if the same content is stored on more than one computer.

Users will have to do little configuration past the basic installing of the Windows Home Server Connector software on each machine. However, Microsoft does enable users to customize backup settings via the Windows Home Server Console application.

"Restoring a home computer to a previous point in time is easy. If you want to restore your computer to a previous point in time, you would boot the home computer from the Home Computer Restore CD. The computer will connect to your home server and provide a simple wizard for restoring a single hard drive or multiple hard drives from a backup of that computer that is stored on your home server," said Headrick.

But users can also restore individual files or folders. Through the Windows Home Server Console application, users will be able to drag and drop files or folders in a Windows Explorer window to restore them to their backed up stage.

"The Windows Home Server initiates the backups of your home computers every night, by default it starts backing up your PCs shortly after midnight (this time is configurable). If one of your PCs is plugged in but in sleep mode, the home server will 'wake it up', back it up, and then let it go back to sleep. If it is only on battery power, we will choose to not backup that PC," Headrick said, adding that Microsoft does not plan to turn on the computers that have been shut down for the night.