Microsoft includes native support for IPv6 and is enabled by default since in Windows Vista. IPv6 is the new computer address protocol that will eventually replace IPv4, although, like the metric system the United States seems never to actually adopt. Unless you network has a specific requirement for IPv6 you can and perhaps should disable it.
You cannot disable IPv6 by disabling the protocol on each of your network interfaces. The proper way to disable IPv6 is to disable it by modification of the windows registry. Another option is to use a set of utilities by Microsoft to enable, disable and modify the behavior of IPv6 networking in windows. A utility that will automatically disable or re-enable IPv6 or its components is available from Microsoft.com.
Option 1: Manual IPv6 Disable Method
- Open regedit.exe
- goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SYSTEM, CurrentControlSet, services, TCPIP6 and Parameters.
- Right click on Parameters and select New and then DWORD (32-bit) Value.
- Name the new value "DisabledComponents" and hit Enter.
- Right click on the new DisabledComponents value you just created and select Modify.
- Set the value of DisabledComponents to "FFFFFFFF" and click OK. That is a series of 8 F characters.
For Windows 7 however doing it on NIC properties should be enough.
Run this from command prompt
reg add hklm\system\currentcontrolset\services\tcpip6\parameters /v DisabledComponents /t REG_DWORD /d 255
and then reboot.
MS Utilities: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929852
Disabling IPv6 might be a good idea, because the protocol consumes additional CPU time and system memory as well as bandwidth. Of course the resource usage of an internet protocol is pretty low, but why would you waste resources for 2 internet protocols, 1 is already enough.
Enabling another internet protocol might also increase your vulnerability to possible exploits. If there is going to be an IPv6 exploit and you are only using IPv4, you won’t be affected.
Disable IPv6 for tunnel adapter & interfaces
If you are not familiar with editing the registry, I created a .reg file for you that you can use to add the registry key and disable IPv6. To verify that this file is ok, open it with a notepad once, it only includes the following lines:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\TCPIP6\Parameters] “DisabledComponents”=dword:ffffffff
http://windows7themes.net/en-us/disable-ipv6-windows-7/