IPv6 and LAN visibility

[chenkong 1]

I am looking to solve an issue where I want to disable IPv6  but keep LAN connectivity.  I'm not really a network person,  and my understanding of IPv6 is pretty scant.  I'm assuming since many VPN clients offer the ability to disable it, and I don't really see it being used/discussed other than under security issues,  that its worth disabling in some situations.

 

Is it really OK to leave it on?  I certainly don't want to become the victim of some new exploit or anything.  But I need access to my LAN machines like my file/media server.  

 

Do I need to just set a local 192.x.x.x  range in the Routing setup of the client, to keep them outside of the VPN?   

 

I don't really understand why disabling IPv6 would disable LAN access anyway,  since those PC's have IPv4 addresses, right?

 

Outside of this issue I'm also just generally curious how/why this is.

 

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.