For a fun little project, I took an old ProLiant G6 Server from an old office my mother used to own, and transferred the 2 500GB HDDs into another old computer - a Dell Vostro 230, to make a little cosy home media server.
There is a little story to be told getting the darn thing to run Windows 10 with no problems.
In order for my server to fit the specs for my (super secret!) project, I needed to enable WOL, to allow my media to be available on-demand while preserving expensive electricity. I must admit, even getting Windows 10 to work on the old machine was a chore, let alone WOL. First of all, the darn thing doesn't even have updated drivers. The latest Windows version OFFICIALLY supported by the dinosaur is - drum roll please - Windows XP. Yes, Windows XP.
So you can imagine my horror when I realised that there were no integrated graphics drivers for Windows 7, let alone Windows 10. I was stuck on a 800x600 resolution.
Great.
Before updating it to Win10, it was running on Win7 - it was my brother's computer. It did have a working IG driver, and as such was able to output 1920 x 1080. After going to Device Manager and selecting 'Update Device Driver', I scoured various Intel sites for the G41 Integrated Graphics Driver. After downloading at least 3 (from the official Vostro 230 website, and the latest IG drivers from Intel), and coming face to face with the 'Your computer does not meet the minimum requirements for this driver', error all three times, I was pretty much ready to give up.
Until, like an angel from the heavens, the Windows Device Manager descended upon me the gift of native resolution! Hurrah! I'll never forget the 'Device Driver Updated' notification for the rest of my life.
And, as such, Windows 10 was fully installed. And I must say, after running Windows 7 on the same computer, it was way more responsive. That was one thing out of the way. After renaming the device from 'DESKTOP-JR1OR8' to simply 'WINSERVER', I felt some pride. But my job was not over yet.
The Vostro 230 has native support for WOL. Unfortunately, the WOL feature only works in Windows 10 for Hibernation and Sleep (S3). It does not support booting back up from Hybrid Shutdown (S4) or Shutdown (S5). So I had to make some changes. Instead of shutting down the computer, I made it so the power button makes it Hibernate.
Then it was time to make some more changes. I needed to enable several settings - deactivating the Low Power mode, allowing WOL magic packets to be acted upon by the built in NIC, and so on and so forth.
Then, I enabled 'Allow this device to wake the computer' on the Ethernet card. Now, everything was set. I installed a small application (thanks, https://sourceforge.net/projects/aquilawol/) from a testing computer and WINSERVER, and used the 'listener' tool to... well... listen for magic packets. One disabled firewall later and we were in business.
UPDATE: Just managed to wire the WOL functionality into Teamviewer! Now, it's infinitely more convenient.
Keep updated on my Transplant and upcoming Pi project!