How to disable IP version 6 or its specific components in Windows

This article describes step-by-step instructions for how to disable Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) or its specific components in Windows 7, in Windows Vista, in Windows Server 2008 R2, and in Windows Server 2008. IPv6 or its components can be disabled on the host computer, or it can be disabled on a specific network adapter.

We do not recommend disabling IPv6. However, if you must disable IPv6 or components of IPv6, follow the steps in this article. For more information about why we do not recommend disabling IPv6, see the "What are Microsoft's recommendations about disabling IPv6?" question in the following article:
To disable IPv6 or its components, you must be logged on to the computer as a member of the Administrators group, or your user account must be granted permissions to edit the Windows registry.

You can use the following Fix it Solutions to enable or to disable IPv6 or to selectively enable or disable components of IPv6 automatically. Or, you can enable or disable components of IPv6 yourself. To have us enable or disable IPv6 or its components for you, go to the "Fix it for me" section. If you would rather enable or disable IPv6 or its components yourself, go to the "Let me fix it myself" section.

Note By default, the 6to4 tunneling protocol is enabled in Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 when an interface is assigned a public IPv4 address (that is, an IPv4 address that is not in the ranges 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, or 192.168.0.0/16). 6to4 will automatically assign an IPv6 address to the 6to4 tunneling interface for each such address that is assigned, and 6to4 will dynamically register these IPv6 addresses on the assigned DNS server. If this behavior is not desired, we recommend disabling IPv6 tunnel interfaces on the affected hosts.

Fix it for me

To enable or to disable IPv6 or to selectively enable or disable components of IPv6 automatically, click the Fix this problem link. Then, click Run in the File Download dialog box, and follow the steps in this wizard.



Note This wizard may be only in English. However, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.

Note If you are not on the computer that has the problem, you can save the automatic fix to a flash drive or to a CD, and then you can run it on the computer that has the problem.

Let me fix it myself

Change the DisabledComponents registry value

You can disable IPv6 on the host through the DisabledComponents registry value. The DisabledComponents registry value affects all network interfaces on the host.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 322756 How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To disable certain IPv6 components yourself, follow these steps:

1. Click Start
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   , type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit.exe in the Programs list.
2. In the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
3. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters \
4. Double-click DisabledComponents to change the DisabledComponents entry.
   
   
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   Note If the DisabledComponents entry is unavailable, you must create it. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. In the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
   2. Type DisabledComponents, and then press ENTER.
   3. Double-click DisabledComponents.
5. Type any one of the following values in the Value data field to configure the IPv6 protocol to the desired state, and then click OK:
   1. Type 0 to enable all IPv6 components. (Windows default setting)
   2. Type 0xffffffff to disable all IPv6 components except the IPv6 loopback interface. This value also configures Windows to prefer using IPv4 over IPv6 by changing entries in the prefix policy table. For more information, see Source and Destination Address Selection
      (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/bb877985.aspx)
      .
   3. Type 0x20 to prefer IPv4 over IPv6 by changing entries in the prefix policy table.
   4. Type 0x10 to disable IPv6 on all nontunnel interfaces (both LAN and Point-to-Point Protocol [PPP] interfaces).
   5. Type 0x01 to disable IPv6 on all tunnel interfaces. These include Intra-Site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP), 6to4, and Teredo.
   6. Type 0x11 to disable all IPv6 interfaces except for the IPv6 loopback interface.

To use the DisabledComponents registry value to check whether IPv6 was disabled, run the following command at a Windows command prompt:
reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters /v DisabledComponents

You may receive the following error message: If you receive this error message, the DisabledComponents registry value is not set. If the DisabledComponents value is set, it overrides the settings in the connection properties.

Unbind IPv6 from a specific network adapter

You can unbind IPv6 from a specific network adapter in Local Area Connection Properties. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start
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   , and then click Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Sharing Center.
3. In the View your active networks area, click Local Area Connection, and then click Properties.
4. On the Networking tab, click to clear the Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) check box, and then click OK.
   
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Note The Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) check box affects only the specific network adapter and will unbind IPv6 from the selected network adapter. To disable IPv6 on the host, use the DisabledComponents registry value. The DisabledComponents registry value does not affect the state of the check box. Therefore, even if the DisabledComponents registry key is set to disable IPv6, the check box in the Networking tab for each interface can still be checked. This is expected behavior.

Advanced steps

Important The following steps are for advanced users only.

To prefer IPv6 over IPv4 in prefix policies, follow these steps:

1. Find the current value data of DisabledComponents.
2. Change the data to binary data. It will be a 32-bit binary value.
3. Find the sixth bit of the data, and then set it to 0. Do not change any other bits. For example, if the current data is 11111111111111111111111111111111, the new data should be 11111111111111111111111111011111.
4. Change the data from binary to hexadecimal.
5. Set the hexadecimal value as the new value data for DisabledComponents.

To enable IPv6 on all nontunnel interfaces, follow these steps:

1. Find the current value data of DisabledComponents.
2. Change the data to binary data. It will be a 32-bit binary value.
3. Find the fifth bit of the data, and then set it to 0. Do not change any other bits. For example, if the source data is 11111111111111111111111111111111, the new data should be 11111111111111111111111111101111.
4. Change the data from binary to hexadecimal.
5. Set the hexadecimal value as the new value data for DisabledComponents.

To enable all IPv6 tunnel interfaces, follow these steps:

1. Find the current value data of DisabledComponents.
2. Change the data to binary data. It will be a 32-bit binary value.
3. Find the first bit of the data, and then set it to 0. Do not change any other bits. For example, if the source data is 11111111111111111111111111111111, the new data should be 11111111111111111111111111111110.
4. Change the data from binary to hexadecimal.
5. Set the hexadecimal value as the new value data for DisabledComponents.

To enable all IPv6 interfaces except for the IPv6 loopback interface, follow these steps:

1. Find the current value data of DisabledComponents.
2. Change the data to binary data. It will be a 32-bit binary value.
3. Find the first bit of the data and the fifth bit of the data, and then set them both to 0. Do not touch any other bits. For example, if current data is 11111111111111111111111111111111, the new data should be 11111111111111111111111111101110.
4. Change the data from binary to hexadecimal.
5. Set the hexadecimal value as the new value data for DisabledComponents.

Notes

• Using a value other than 0x0 or 0x20 will cause the Routing and Remote Access service to fail after this change takes effect.
• You must restart your computer for these changes to take effect.

Note Administrators must create an ADMX file to expose the settings in step 5 in a Group Policy setting.

For more information about how to manage Group Policy settings by using ADMX files, go to the following Microsoft TechNet website: For more information about the Windows registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: