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Vista Not Playing Well With IPv6

netbuzz writes in to note that some early adopters of Microsoft Vista are reporting problems with Vista's implementation of IPv6. An example:"'We are seeing a number of applications that are IP-based that do not like the addressing scheme of IPv6,' says one user. 'We will send a print job to an IP-based printer, and the print job becomes corrupted. We're seeing this with Window's Vista machines. When IPv6 is installed, this happens without fail. As soon as we remove IPv6, all of our printer functions return to normal.'"

14 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft's IPv6 stack by QuantumG · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The future of security issues.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  2. Very funny, but... by tygerstripes · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Okay, once the M$-bashing has died down, can someone have a think about the subtle implications of this? IPv6 adoption is going to be heavily stunted by this inadequacy if it isn't fixed pretty pronto - and even if it is fixed, with the other problems v6 is having, will anyone actually try trusting it? Not for some time, I suspect.

    Vista adoption is going to increase - it's a sad fact, and I can't see anyone denying it. Therefore IPv6 is going to experience stunted uptake from this blow.

    The one benefit I can see is that anybody who really does see worthwhile benefits in adopting IPv6 will say "bugger M$, there are hundreds of Open Source solutions that support this without issue out of the box". Maybe this could have a positive impact on OSS uptake in the long-term.

    --
    Meta will eat itself
  3. Re:Obligatory by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "2^32 unique addresses ought to be enough for anybody."

    It is enough for anybody. The problem is that it's not enough for everybody.

    --
    This guy's the limit!
  4. Re:They need a better implementation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Maybe that's part of the problem. There have some problems in the BSD implementation of IPv6.

  5. Re:Simple solution. by Nexx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right. Can you do me a favour and "easily remove" kernel modules from any OS please. Meanwhile, removing the IPv6 stack from Windows is trivial -- just a few clicks of the mouse, and you're there.

    I'm not a Windows apologist by any stretch of the imagination, but this blatant misinformation needs to be corrected.

  6. Re:I am NOT surprised, given that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's IP6...

    Even OpenBSD, the most security-minded folks around, recently found a hole in their IP6 implementation. Why? IP6 simply isn't used that widely and so hasn't been tested in a lot of situations. Do you use IP6? I don't. Neither do my parents, neighbors, co-workers, and the vast majority of my colleagues I know working for other companies. It simply isn't that widespread.

    I'll expect to find quite a few IP6 bugs in most OS's until it becomes much more common.

  7. Re:Some kids are just social outcasts by walt-sjc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    MS's business model DEPENDS on them not working well with others. Both the US and EU tried to get them to play nice, and both have failed for various reasons (mostly political.) This should not be news to anyone at this point. It's a fact that MS fans don't care about and detractors gnash their teeth over.

  8. Absolutely Unacceptable by CranberryKing · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Everyone expects bugs in a new OS release, but.. I realize that most people treat IPv6 like global warming. We all know we HAVE TO adopt it but are (as harmoniously as possible) ALL putting it off until we have no choice. When we finally do 'flip the switch' over to IPv6 there will be LOTS of vista installs all over the net that didn't get the update for their corrupt network stack. If it breaks printers, you know there are other problems yet to be discovered.

    MS: If you are going to monopolize the desktop market, have some sense of responsibility! As much as we hate it, the world depends on your products. Why don't you just build a windows-esque front end for a bsd based system on your next OS already? No one will give a shit and consumers will finally get the product they deserve and paid for.

    sorry for the rant. I'm back on the coffee.

  9. Re:Oh, is that all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So, the firmware for your network switch can't handle whatever's thrown at it (good or bad, from Vista, or anything else)? Seems like you need to make the firmware upgrade a higher priority; I don't think I'd sleep well knowing that random stuff can take down my network.

  10. Re: open source solutions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While I agree wholeheartedly with the hope that OSS solutions would gain strength from the IPv6 problems, for much of the business world, M$ is the dominant force -- so like you said -- a bad implementation is a body blow to IPv6's adoption. Too bad Redmond will never learn the Open Source lesson that more eyes find more problems in the early adoption v.9 releases, instead of after-market bad press.


    seriously? I'm not trying to be mean here... but have you ever heard of Beta? as in Vista Beta? there were a couple of 'em you know... Gobs of people installed it and provided Microsoft with so much feedback they were overwhelmed initially. You don't need to be OSS to have a decent Beta program that gets your code out into the real world where it can be beat on.

    As for IPv6... it's been around forever and no one cares. It hasn't been adopted because it's a hassle and very few people have been forced to. We just did a major network reorganization at our relatively small company - it took an entire weekend and the ensuing issues took about two weeks to fully clean up. Did we go IPv6? no. Why? Because we didn't have to. Because it was one more thing to screw crap up and we didn't want to deal with it. I haven't met too many admins who enjoy setting up stuff that's only going to cause them more problems when they don't even need it in the first place.

    The same fanboys that are saying no one is adopting Vista because it sucks fail to understand the real reason - people aren't adopting it because it takes a helluva lot of time to test and roll out a new OS across your entire company. Why are people still running Win 98? 'cause it's better? no, it's a piece of crap compared to Win2k. They're running it because it's easier to leave it on there than it is to upgrade.

    Get off the "Microsoft is ruining everything" train and realize that some things don't happen because people are lazy - not because "Microsoft is killing everything". Crappy IPv6 support when Vista has only been installed on a tiny percentage of corporate machines doesn't mean anything. By the time Vista represents a decent market share, it will have been fixed.
  11. Re:Obligatory by Sancho · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I suspect that this just means that worms will have to be smarter, gathering information on IP addresses to attack based upon connections, logs, etc. People using BitTorrent will provide a huge number of targets. Compromise a webserver, and you've got the addresses of anyone who visits the site. Read through e-mail headers, and you'll get some more.

    Bots have no trouble finding e-mail addresses to spam. I imagine that in the face of near infinite IP addresses, they'll find some way to continue their attacks.

    Also, the IPv6 address space corresponding to the current IPv4 address space will probably always be scanned.

  12. Re:And this is news because? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    And what the fuck is "industrial strength testing"? Is it expensive? Why isn't everybody doing it everywhere?

  13. Re:And this is news because? by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I must have missed all the kernel releases that broke things from video to tunneling to so on and so forth. Where was the many eyes approach of Open Source then? Hah. Speaks volumes.

    In other words, no software solution at an OS level is able to catch every bug. Not Windows, not Linux.

  14. Re:While You're In There by dosquatch · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Bah, whine, whine, bitch, complain. You don't know how easy you had it! Do you have any idea how hard it was to muster the energy to whoop your arse for being a pansy after carrying the school up that cliff brick by brick every morning? You don't know how good you had it.

    Sincerely,
    Your Teacher

    --
    "Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC