So we’re in a state of transition where our networking technology is literally halfway between IPv4, the only xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address architecture (often looks like 192.168.1.1) and a loooong string of hexadecimal. The reason is because our network environment has become so full that we are about to exhaust the number of numerical combinations available under the original system. There are some other infrastructure reasons as well, but they’re more complicated.
My Windows 7 laptop gets around. Because it has connected to an untold number of public and community networks since it was initialized, I ended up with such an enormous mass of defunct network adapters that I could not use [ipconfig] because it always overflow command.com’s display cache. I literally had 83 tunnel adapters.
Their purpose is to convert outgoing IPv6 protocol data to the legacy IPv4. However, every time I connect to a new network, it spawns a new one. This includes that weird glitch where every now and then it connects to my home router and creates a new network by the name [Home 2], though now I’m up to [Home 5] for no reason.
Other instructions recommends disabling the IPv6 protocols in the network adapters themselves, but it didn’t clear the enormous cache of defunct adapters. However, I did find out how to delete them, and let it start all over again.
~Go to [Device Manager]
~Expand the [Network Adapters] tree.
~Go to [View] and enable the viewing of hidden devices.
You should see all of them now, called [Microsoft 6to4 adapter]. The list will include not only your physical adapters but also a few other protocols, including all of the [WAN Miniport] the [Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface] and the [Microsoft ISATAP Adapter]
Be careful in here. Deleting the wrong thing will leave you without your networking adapters and you’ll have to find a way to reinstall them. The aggravating thing is that you have to delete each of the 6to4 adapters manually, one at a time, because Device Manager doesn’t let you multi-select.
But now I’ve cleaned it out and I can actually use [ipconfig] again. Yay!
