Vernalex.com - Welcome

Display Name (?):

IPv6 Helper Service

Short Name (?):

6to4

Executable (?):

svchost.exe

Library (?):

6to4svc.dll

Depends On (?):

Remote Procedure Call (RPC), Windows Management Instrumentation

Supports (?):

None.

Description (?):

Provides DDNS name registration and automatic IPv6 connectivity over an IPv4 network. If this service is stopped, other computers may not be able to reach it by name and the machine will only have IPv6 connectivity if it is connected to a native IPv6 network. If this service is disabled, any other services that explicitly depend on this service will fail to start.

OS (?):

XP Home/Professional, Vista Home/Business, Server 2003, Vista Server

Startup (?):

Default	Home	Workstation	Server	Minimal	Tweaked	Automatic
Automatic	Disabled	Automatic	Automatic	Disabled	Disabled	Disabled

Explanation (?):

This service allows the ability to tunnel TCP/IP version 6 network communications through a TCP/IP version 4 network. Also known as IPv6 this technology provides a greater range of IP addresses and other abilities such as quality of service (QoS) are natively supported. This service is really only useful for computers that are transitioning to IPv6 through the use of 6to4 (see RFC 3056). At this point IPv6 is supported in a great deal of the Internet's infrastructure, but it is many years away from being used exclusively. You can safely disable this service if you don't require IPv6 network communications, but I'd suggest that you remove it instead. You can remove this service by removing the network protocol called "Microsoft TCP/IP version 6" from the Windows network properties.