How To Migrate from IPv4 to IPv6

It is going to take for ever for the world to migrate from IPv4 to IPv6. Fortunately the IPv6 committees took this into account when they designed IPv6. Specifically they included Teredo for tunnelling IPv4 inside IPv6. Here are the main tasks you can undertake to prepare for IPv6.

Whereas you should not attempt to upgrade an old XP machine to Vista*; upgrading an XP client from IPv4 to IPv6 will be the proverbial piece of cake. Vista machines don't need to be upgraded because they have the IPv6 protocol pre-installed. Thus all the IPv6 migration falls to the servers and the routers.

1. Upgrade your applications to work with both IPv6 and IPv4. In the case of the operating systems, they have a built-in IPv6 stack. Question: is IPv6 a killer reason to migrate to Vista. No. XP SP2 has a perfectly good IPv6 stack. Network connection, properties, Install. Alternatively, call for help about Install IPv6.
2. Focus on DNS and make sure it supports IPv6 address and PTR records. In truth, if you have a true DNS expert, it will be straightforward for them to configure the AAAA records and the appropriate in-arpa reverse lookup zone.
3. Before we consider IPv6 and DHCP, a few words about other simple auto-configuration methods. The IPv6 host can use Router Discovery to obtain vital information such as router IP address. What happens is that routers send multicast Router Advertisement (RA) messages periodically. From such RA messages a host can assign itself a Link-local address.
4. As far as I can see, you will need Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) for IPv6 DHCP. There may be plans to add IPv6 scopes in Windows Server 2003, but I cannot find any reference to them. What did find was this statement from Microsoft, 'The IPv6 protocol for the Windows Server 2003 family does not currently support DHCPv6.'