>I went to Windows Update today. I was up-to-date with the Criticals but I noticed that the number of other updates was up, so I went and had a look.
>
>In there was one recommended for XP SP1 and its little blurb said "The Advanced Networking Pack for Windows XP is a set of platform technologies designed for the use and deployment of advanced networking solutions. It includes an updated IPv6 stack supporting NAT traversal for IPv6 applications, an IPv6 firewall, and a peer-to-peer platform for writing distributed solutions. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer". I use peer-to-peer on the subject XP-home machine so I thought I should investigate the 'read more'.
>
>Unfortunately, the subject document "817778 - Overview of the Advanced Networking Pack for Windows XP" was full of jargon that I know nothing about. I can't tell if it is good or not. Worse, I can't tell if it will be useful or harmful to my ALREADY WORKING NICELY THANK YOU system.
>
>1) Has anyone installed this and encountered any problems?... or any neat feature that was really really helpful?
>
>2) Does anyone know where there might be an English rendition of what this is all about?
>
>Thanks in advance

The Internet today uses IP version 4 (IPv4) data packets, as a universal data-exchange protocol. For instance, if you send an e-mail, and it is longer than a certain size, it will be divided into pieces (the IP packets). These pieces may arrive at the other end out of order (because they take different routes), and some packets may not arrive. The TCP protocol takes care of re-assembling the pieces in the correct order, and requesting that missing packets are re-sent.

Each IP packet contains the address of the origin, and the destination. Those are the IP addresses, which you have probably already seen.

Currently, IP addresses are 4 bytes long. Due to different circumstances (beyond the scope of this "brief" summary), many addresses are wasted, and some years ago, people started to push for IPv6 (IP version 6), which should eventually supplant IPv4. In this protocol, addresses are given as 16-byte numbers.

Recently, I heard that the World probably won't switch to IPv6 for several years more (in the meantime, several technologies have appeared which make better use of existing addresses). However, many operating systems, programs, routers, etc., are already working towards compatibility with what is expected to become the future standard.

For further reading, see the definition and links at http://www.pcwebopedia.com/TERM/I/IPng.html.

HTH,

Hilmar.