Last Friday I met with some friends I used to work with in the past and we had some talk about Windows 7 and IPv6. One had mentioned that they would explicitly disable the IPv6 on the client systems, this because they would not use it and they wanted to avoid unnecessary network traffic on their LAN/WAN.

Back home I did some searches on the internet and found the below statement in the Support for IPv6 in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Microsoft TechNet Magazine article.

It is unfortunate that some organizations disable IPv6 on their computers running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, where it is installed and enabled by default. Many disable IPv6-based on the assumption that they are not running any applications or services that use it. Others might disable it because of a misperception that having both IPv4 and IPv6 enabled effectively doubles their DNS and Web traffic. This is not true.

From Microsoft’s perspective, IPv6 is a mandatory part of the Windows operating system and it is enabled and included in standard Windows service and application testing during the operating system development process. Because Windows was designed specifically with IPv6 present, Microsoft does not perform any testing to determine the effects of disabling IPv6. If IPv6 is disabled on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or later versions, some components will not function. Moreover, applications that you might not think are using IPv6—such as Remote Assistance, HomeGroup, DirectAccess, and Windows Mail—could be.

Therefore, Microsoft recommends that you leave IPv6 enabled, even if you do not have an IPv6-enabled network, either native or tunneled. By leaving IPv6 enabled, you do not disable IPv6-only applications and services (for example, HomeGroup in Windows 7 and DirectAccess in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are IPv6-only) and your hosts can take advantage of IPv6-enhanced connectivity.

I must admit that I haven’t looked at this in more detail myself, but for now I guess I would follow the advice above and leave IPv6 on, especially taking into account that some of our customers are considering using DirectAccess at some stage.

Another interesting article I recommend reading is IPv6 Autoconfiguration in Windows Vista which explains the IPv6 Autoconfiguration behavior in more detail.

Just found another nice FREE Utility. As the name says SoftPerfect Network Scanner allows you to scan your network and allows you to find any IP, NetBIOS or SNMP enabled devices. The tool also supports Remote WMI, Registry and Service access that can be customized to your own needs.

The Tool does not require installation. Download SoftPerfect Network Scanner from here

About 3 years ago when Windows Vista was on the horizon there has been a lot of talk around IPv6. But since then, at least in the environment I work in, it has become quiet around this topic. On Wikipedia we can read that based on a study from Google, penetration is still less than one percent of Internet traffic in any country

But nowadays we more often hear about the IPv4 Address exhaustion meaning that soon we will run out of IPv4 addresses. An interesting resource for this topic is the “IPv4 Address Report”.

While private companies at this stage don’t appear to see the urgency of moving towards IPv6 yet, many goverments have taken action. The European Commission has set a 25% IPv6 target for 2010 and in the United States plans exist as well to push IPv6 across the government agencies.

So while we are planning for Windows7 would it not make sense reconsidering the deployment of IPv6 technology ? Let’s take DirectAccess a new technology introduced with Windows7, allowing users to be seamlessly connected to their corporate network using IPv6 technology.

I personally think it is about time to think about IPv6 seriously now.

More IPv6 sources:

Microsoft IPv6

Microsoft Support WebCast: Introduction to Internet Protocol Version 6

Microsoft Support WebCast: IPv6 Transition Technologies

IPv6.com

IPv6 Portal

Microsoft IPv6 FAQ

Microsoft TechNet Webcast: Why Deploy Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)? (Level 200)

Google IPv6

IPv6 Ready

In my next blog post i will address the IP version 6 topic, but let me first share this amusing video I found while I was collecting information around IPv6. It’s really worth listening.