Backward Compatibility of the Collector Toolkit

From time to time, the runtime library files of the Collector Toolkit (namely ihCollectorDelegator.dll and its variants) undergo changes to introduce new features or fix defects.

In some cases, changes are introduced that break backward compatibility. This means that the new runtime library does not work with custom collectors developed with past versions of the Toolkit. In such cases, a new version number appears in the names of the DLL files to indicate that they should not replace previous releases of the runtime library.

In other cases, a new runtime library, with changes, still works with custom collectors developed with past versions of the Toolkit. If the replacement library has the same name as the replaced library, you can safely replace earlier versions of the runtime library with the new library.

The Collector Toolkit includes the latest version of header files and import libraries (.h and .lib files), but no previous versions of these files. However, the Toolkit ships all previously released runtime DLLs that are necessary for custom collectors developed in the past to run. When there have been successive releases of a DLL that are backward compatible (indicated by their shared name), only the latest release is shipped.

If you want to develop new custom collectors, you should acquire and use the latest version of the Collector Toolkit. If you want to maintain or fix defects in an existing custom collector, you can use the version of the Toolkit with which the collector was developed. Alternately, you may want to try a more recent version. However, in such a case, some changes to the source code may be necessary if the Toolkit contains changes that break backward compatibility.