I talk to a lot of people about DirectAccess. One of the most fun questions to field is "How do you install the client software". You probably know by now that there is no client software necessary, but I love it when I inform them of this and their response is "but there must be some kind of client software". Cracks me up every time. No, this is not a VPN, where you have to go through the grunt work of installing, configuring, and updating software when new releases come out, and fixing software when it breaks. I'm so sorry to all of you VPN admins out there who have to deal with this every day, because it doesn't have to be this way! Since DirectAccess clients and servers must be domain joined, it makes sense that they can take advantage of features in Active Directory, features such as Group Policy for the automatic distribution of configuration settings out to the machines.
If you are running Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise, or Windows 8 Enterprise...