The tcp_ip network protocol driver has become the default driver on Windows, replacing the wintcp driver, which is deprecated. The newer driver has better performance, stability, and more features, including IPv6 support.

During an upgrade, the Ingres installer runs a conversion utility to automatically convert vnode definitions and config.dat settings from wintcp to tcp_ip. This utility, iicvtwintcp, can also be run standalone.

While it is possible to manually reconfigure Ingres installations to use tcp_ip only, the process can involve thousands of updates to vnode definitions and configuration files on various machines. The iicvtwintcp utility provides a simple one-step procedure to convert all necessary configuration information.

The wintcp protocol is still available in this release. You can use the iicvtwintcp utility to restore definitions back to the wintcp setting.

Both wintcp and tcp_ip implement the same TCP/IP network protocol and are completely inter-operable with each other and with any Ingres TCP/IP protocol driver on other platforms. The tcp_ip driver supports both IPv6 and IPv4; the wintcp driver supports IPv4 only.

For details on the iicvtwintcp utility, see the Connectivity Guide appendix "IPv6 Configuration."