How to Set Up Wake-on-LAN on Windows 11

Wake-on-LAN lets one device on your network send a small, specially formed message that tells another machine's network card to power the computer back up — no button press, no walking to the other room. It is ideal for a desktop you let sleep to save power but still want to reach for a remote-desktop session, a file you left behind, or a scheduled backup. Windows 11 supports it well, but only once the firmware, the adapter, and your shutdown settings all agree.

How Wake-on-LAN works (30-second version)

When a Windows 11 PC sleeps, hibernates, or is soft-powered-off, its network card is not fully dead — it stays partly powered from standby power and listens for one specific pattern called the magic packet. That packet is six bytes of FF followed by the target card's 6-byte MAC address repeated sixteen times. Because the card matches on that hardware address rather than an IP address (Windows isn't running to hold an IP), the magic packet is normally broadcast across the local network, typically inside a UDP datagram on port 7 or 9. Only the card whose MAC matches acts on it. Two things follow from this: the sender must be on the same local network, and it needs the target's MAC address. Keep those in mind — every step below serves one of them.

Step 1 — Enable Wake-on-LAN in the BIOS/UEFI

The firmware has to permit the network card to stay alive and wake the board. Restart the PC and enter firmware setup — usually a key such as Delete, F2, F10, or F12 pressed during boot (the key varies by manufacturer; Windows 11 can also reach it via Settings > System > Recovery > Advanced startup > Restart now, then Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware Settings). Look under power management or an advanced/onboard-devices section for an option worded something like:

• Wake on LAN, Wake on PCI-E, or Power On By PCI-E/PCI
• Resume by LAN or Remote Wake-Up
• On business machines, a dedicated Wake-on-LAN or PXE remote wake toggle

Wording differs between vendors, so match on the idea rather than an exact string. Enable it, save, and exit. While you are there, if the firmware has a Deep Sleep, ErP, or EuP energy-saving setting, note that it can cut standby power to the network card and defeat WOL from a powered-off state — you may need it disabled for wake-from-shutdown to work.

Step 2 — Configure the network adapter in Device Manager

Now tell Windows 11 to cooperate. Open Device Manager (right-click Start and choose it, or press Win+X, or run devmgmt.msc), expand Network adapters, right-click your wired Ethernet adapter, and choose Properties. Then work through both tabs:

1. On the Power Management tab, tick Allow this device to wake the computer, then tick Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer. The second box is greyed out until the first is ticked; enabling it means the PC wakes on a deliberate WOL request rather than on stray network chatter — Microsoft recommends exactly this pair of checkboxes in its guidance on unwanted wake-up events with WOL, because a magic packet is tied to one adapter's MAC address and is unlikely to be sent by accident.
2. On the Advanced tab, scroll the property list for entries such as Wake on Magic Packet and Wake on Pattern Match. Set Wake on Magic Packet to Enabled. Property names vary by adapter and driver — Intel, Realtek, and Broadcom chipsets label them slightly differently, so match on meaning.
3. If your adapter lists a value for waking from a full power-off (often something like Shutdown Wake-On-Lan or Wake on Magic Packet from power off), set it to Enabled only if you need wake-from-shutdown as well as wake-from-sleep.

Step 3 — Disable Fast Startup (for wake-from-shutdown)

This is the single most common reason WOL "works from Sleep but not from Shut down." Windows' Fast Startup makes shutdown a hybrid low-power state rather than a true off state, and on many systems that stops a genuinely powered-off PC from waking. Microsoft's driver documentation on distinguishing fast startup from wake-from-hibernation spells out the mechanism: Windows saves a hibernation file instead of fully shutting down, and the system-supplied NDIS driver disables miniport wake capabilities on a fast startup. If you only ever wake the machine from Sleep, you can skip this. Otherwise, turn it off:

1. Open Control Panel and go to Hardware and Sound > Power Options (or run control powercfg.cpl).
2. Click Choose what the power buttons do in the left-hand column.
3. Click Change settings that are currently unavailable — this unlocks the greyed-out section below.
4. Under Shutdown settings, clear the Turn on fast startup (recommended) checkbox, then click Save changes.

If Turn on fast startup isn't listed at all, hibernation is switched off on that PC; you can enable it from an elevated terminal with powercfg /hibernate on, though for WOL you generally just want Fast Startup off. These steps are the same on Windows 10 — the Control Panel path hasn't changed — so the guide applies to both.

Step 4 — Find the PC's MAC address

To wake the machine, the sender needs the wired adapter's MAC address (its hardware address). On the target PC, open Terminal or Command Prompt and run:

ipconfig /all

Find your Ethernet adapter in the output and read the value shown as Physical Address — it looks like A1-B2-C3-D4-E5-F6. That is the MAC the magic packet must carry. A quicker alternative that lists every adapter's MAC at once — /v adds the verbose output, per the getmac command reference on Microsoft Learn — is:

getmac /v

Record the address for the wired adapter you enabled WOL on. It's also worth noting the PC's IP address and subnet now, so you can work out the local broadcast address in the next step.

Step 5 — Send a magic packet from another device

With the PC asleep or shut down, send the wake signal from any always-available device on the same local network. You don't need a specific product — a free WOL utility, a phone app, a NAS scheduler, or your router's built-in Wake-on-LAN tool all do the same job. Whatever the tool, give it the same three pieces of information:

• The target MAC address — from Step 4.
• Where to broadcast — the local network's broadcast address, so the frame reaches the sleeping card. On a typical home network that is your subnet's .255 address (for example 192.168.1.255).
• A UDP port — conventionally 7 or 9; either works, because the card matches on the magic-packet pattern regardless.

Windows 11 has no built-in "send" button, but if you want to test from another Windows PC without installing anything, PowerShell can broadcast a magic packet in a few lines. Replace the MAC and broadcast address with your own:

$mac  = 'A1-B2-C3-D4-E5-F6'
$mac  = $mac -split '[:-]' | ForEach-Object { [byte]('0x' + $_) }
$pkt  = (,[byte]255 * 6) + ($mac * 16)
$udp  = New-Object System.Net.Sockets.UdpClient
$udp.Connect(([System.Net.IPAddress]::Broadcast), 9)
$udp.Send($pkt, $pkt.Length) | Out-Null
$udp.Close()

The tool (or the script) builds the packet — six FF bytes followed by the MAC repeated 16 times — wraps it in a UDP datagram, and broadcasts it. If firmware and Windows are set as above, the target wakes within a few seconds. The transaction is stateless and one-way, which is exactly why Wake-on-LAN has survived essentially unchanged for decades.

Wired vs Wi-Fi, and other limits worth knowing

Wired Ethernet is the reliable path

WOL is most dependable over a wired connection on the same local network as the sender. That is the scenario it was built for, and once configured it simply works.

Wi-Fi (WoWLAN) is patchier

Waking over wireless is a distinct feature — Wake on Wireless LAN (WoWLAN) — and it needs the Wi-Fi adapter, its driver, and your access point all to keep the radio listening during sleep. Many laptop Wi-Fi cards don't, or do so inconsistently. If a machine must wake reliably, give it a wired link.

Magic packets don't cross the internet on their own

Because the packet is a local broadcast, it doesn't naturally travel across the internet or between subnets — routers generally don't forward inbound broadcasts. To wake a PC from outside the house you either let a device already on the LAN send the packet locally, or configure the router to relay an incoming wake request to the local broadcast address. Both work, but secure any internet-facing wake path carefully.

Once it's set up, Wake-on-LAN is one of the most satisfying tune-ups on a home network: your machines sleep freely to save power, yet are never truly out of reach. For more in the same spirit, browse our How-To Guides, explore the restored windows-now.com archive, and see the wider Home Server material on always-on setups.