How to Turn IPv6 Off Permanently

IPv6 is going to be the next big thing and there is a countdown on the number of days IPv4 is going to last. Some number it at around 150 days and that is quite scary. IPv4 has a much smaller network load and the end of IPv4 will result in a slowdown of the existing infrastructure of Internet for a few days initially. Not only this, the existing Internet networks have been built with routers and other hardware that are not IPv6 compliant. In short, IPv4 might be ending, but it is so deeply hardwired into the current Internet backbone, it will be extremely hard for us to move to an IPv6 Internet.

IPv4 vs. IPv6

IP stands for Internet Protocol and the number beside it indicates the version number. It is at the heart of the very metabolism of the Internet. All data that you send over the Internet is put inside an IP packet and is transmitted in continuous parts. Every IPv(X) is the Xth revision of the Internet Protocol and IPv4 and IPv6 are the only ones that are commercially used. IPv4 addresses are of the format xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and look like 172.168.100.120. Each xxx is a number from 000 to 255. You can imagine how limited the number of IP addresses are that we can use globally in IPv4. Every website has an IP address and with so many websites at the Internet level, this limited number of IPs is nearing exhaustion. We are in need of larger numbers. Here, IPv6 comes into play, which has larger addresses. In a binary number format, where IPv4 allows 32 digits, IPv6 allows 128 digits. On a comparative scale, IPv6 will allow enough IP addresses to last for a lifetime and its implementation is even more efficient than IPv4.

The how?

Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft enabled the support for IPv6 by default and it has made its way to Windows 7. IPv6 cannot be uninstalled from Windows Vista or Windows 7. However, the feature can be turned off, but it comes back on after a reboot if done temporarily. Therefore, we will see two methods of turning IPv6 off, one permanent and another temporary.