How do I set up and use wake-on-lan (WOL)?

Question

Am using Dell Dimension 8250 PC with WinXP-PRO, and it has wake-on-lan on the motherboard.

I leave my Linksys VPN router powered 'on' all the time (when I am out of town), but would like to shut-down power on my PC (to protect from power failures and surges as well as unauthorized access) and use the wake-on-lan (WOL) feature to turn the PC 'on' (from a laptop from my hotel) so I can use remote access (such as remote desktop management, or just be able to "browse" files and retrieve them)

Is there a way via this router, or in WinXP-PRO, or with another hardware or software product that can help me EASILY use the wake-on-lan feature to remotely turn my PC 'on' and 'off'.

Can't seem to find anywhere the steps to enable remote power-up and power-down. Is it really that obscure? Would greatly appreciate simple setup steps to enable doing this, and the simple steps to wake it up or turn it off. Some people have suggested getting PCAnywhere, but that seems like an expensive way to just be able to turn a PC on and off, and browse files. Thanks

DELL-Cody · Answer

In my experience, due to the way in which a Wake On LAN packet is broadcast, you would need to at least be behind the router, on the same LAN as the system you are attempting to wake. This means that you would need another system on your internal network that is already powered on all the time to send the Wake On LAN packet.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

How do I set up and use wake-on-lan (WOL)?

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