14 DAY TRIAL // Surface devices used in the enterprise lacked one feature that IT admins certainly know how critical it is, especially when having to manage tens or even hundreds of devices: Wake on LAN.
With this feature, it’s possible for administrators to install updates or perform various tasks in their organizations at the most convenient time without being in the proximity of the device and using just the company’s network to wake the device from Connected Standby and then perform all the maintenance remotely.
Microsoft knows that Surface devices are primarily used in the enterprise, so the company is finally releasing Wake on LAN support with the help of a separate driver that can be downloaded and installed by owners of its most recent models.
Surface Book, Surface Pro 4, Pro 3, and Surface 3 are all supported as long as they use an Ethernet connection or a Surface Dock. New models will most likely support this feature too, including the Surface Pro 5 and the Surface Book 2 expected in the coming months.
Dedicated driver with Wake on LAN support
In order to enable Wake on LAN, users need to manually download a new driver released by Microsoft - the default driver pack that’s shipped to Surface devices does not include Wake on LAN support. The feature only works on devices running Windows 10 Anniversary Update (version 1607) or newer, and it will be fully supported in the Creators Update due in April.
“Surface support for Wake on LAN allows you to leverage built-in Wake on LAN capabilities in management solutions such as System Center Configuration Manager to automatically perform such maintenance,” Microsoft explains.
Full documentation for the new Surface Wake on LAN support is available here and for a PowerShell script that sends a WOL message to a target device you can look for more info here - this helps wake up a Surface device with PowerShell after the aforementioned driver is installed and the feature is enabled.