Disabling Teredo Tunneling in Vista
If you Google ‘Teredo’, a wealth of tech-related articles come up – on tunneling protocols and v6/v4 technologies and other things you might not understand. To put it simply, Teredo is a tunneling technology that links your Vista PC to a similar, distant IPv6 host via an IPv6-incompatible network – which in most cases is an IPv4 network. (Learn how to turn off IPv6 in Windows)
In Vista, Teredo is installed by default and enabled so that it remains in a standby mode and comes into action only when required. This is typically when you install an application that needs Teredo to function properly. The main problem with Teredo is that it involves a bit of heavy-duty work, and if it is switched on unnecessarily, it might slow down your network connection. And, as there is no way to uninstall this default application – you can only disable it.
To disable Teredo, you have three options– the Netsh command prompt, the Registry, and the Graphical User Interface (GUI). The steps for each are listed below.
Using Netsh to Disable Teredo
- Locate the Command Prompt at:
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories. - Right-click on Command Prompt, and select Run as Administrator.
[At the User Account Control prompt, press Continue.] - Once you have started the command prompt, type in the following commands one-by-one and press Enter after each command.
netshinterface
teredo
- Now, you simply have to type in:set state disabled
[Instead of entering the commands in Steps 3 and 4 separately, you can just type in:
netsh interface teredo set state disabled
and your Teredo client will be disabled.]
Using the Registry to Disable Teredo
- Open the Registry Editor dialog by typing:regeditin the Start Search field, and pressing Enter.
[At the User Account Control prompt, press Continue.] - Open the registry key corresponding to the following address in the registry tree:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters\
- In the right-hand panel, right-click on the blank space and select New -> DWORD Value. Enter the value for the new DWORD as (including the exact capitalization):DisabledComponents
- Double-click on DisabledComponents and, in the dialog that pops up, select the Hexadecimal option for the Base on the right, and enter 8 in the Value data field to the left.
- Press OK and reboot the PC.
Using GUI to Disable Teredo
- Go to Start -> Control Panel -> System and Maintenance.
- Select the Device Manager option to open the Device Manager window.
[At the User Account Control prompt, press Continue.] - In the Device Manager menu bar, go to View -> Show hidden devices to enable display of hidden devices.
- Now, open the Network Adapters tree, right-click on the Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface option, and then click on Disable.
- You also have to right-click on the 6to4 Adapter and Disable it.
Exit the GUI, and restart your machine.