Upgrading to BrowserHawk 12.x

Introduction

This document provides important information on how to upgrade from older versions of BrowserHawk to BrowserHawk 12.0. It also covers some important considerations to keep in mind while planning for your upgrade.

BrowserHawk 12 offers several major new features and capabilities. In addition it provides dozens of enhancements and important updates. For more details see What's New in BrowserHawk 12.x.

Quick Index:

Backward compatibility
Obtaining your license key
Obtaining and Installing BrowserHawk 12.0
Important notes - please read
Performing the upgrade
Additional reading

Backward compatibility

BrowserHawk 12.0 is fully backward compatible with all BrowserHawk code written for BrowserHawk 5.0 and later. This means that you can simply install the BrowserHawk software and should not have any need to update your BrowserHawk code.

Obtaining your license key

Before installing BrowserHawk 12.0 please read the following to make sure you have a valid license key that will work with this version prior to installation.

Customers with ACTIVE Support and Maintenance

Your upgrade to BrowserHawk 12.0 is free if your Support and Maintenance Plan (SAMP) is current.
Your SAMP will be current if either:
- You purchased new or upgraded BrowserHawk licenses within the past 365 days. In this case the key we sent with your order is already coded to run this latest version.
- Or, you purchased a renewal to your SAMP, and your renewal term is still in effect. In this case the updated license key we sent with your renewal order is already coded to run this latest version. This assumes, however, that you installed the updated key when we sent it. See the note below for information on how to verify your key is valid in case you are not sure.
Important note: Please confirm that your existing license key is valid for the latest version of BrowserHawk before upgrading, especially if you are not sure whether you previously installed the latest license key sent with a SAMP renewal order. Use the license key validation tool to verify your key is valid.
Customers with EXPIRED Support and Maintenance

If you previously purchased BrowserHawk, but your Support and Maintenance Plan (SAMP) was not renewed and is expired, you are eligible to purchase an upgrade to BrowserHawk. Your paid upgrade will include one year of support and maintenance, so that all upgrades over the next year as well as your technical support are free. With your order you will receive a license key that runs version 12.0.

Upgrading Across Editions

After comparing editions, if you find features in a higher edition of BrowserHawk of interest, you can purchase an upgrade to the desired edition. For example, you can upgrade from 9.01 Professional to 12.0 Enterprise, or even 12.0 Professional to 12.0 Enterprise.

Obtaining & Installing BrowserHawk 12.0

Use one of the following links to download version 12.0.

BrowserHawk 12.0 for ActiveX/.NET (x86) (x86 Vs. x64? Help me decide!)

BrowserHawk 12.0 for ActiveX/.NET (x64)

BrowserHawk4J 12.0 for CFMX / JSP / Servlets / Java / Other

Please see the above section to make sure you have a proper license key for this version prior to installation.

Important notes if upgrading from BH 11.x or earlier

This section outlines some important considerations regarding upgrading to BrowserHawk 12.0 and offers some useful tips on areas you may want to focus on.

All developers: If you have customized your browser defintions using the BrowserHawk Editor, please be sure to backup your maindefs.bdf, maindefs.bdd, and maindefs.mrg files before upgrading, as your customizations will be overwritten during the upgrade process.

All developers: BrowserHawk 12 provides many new features, enhancements, and important updates. See What's New in BH 12 for more information. Highlights include the new Progressive download connection speed test with latency, and detecting upload speeds.

All developers: To quickly get up to speed on some of the major new features in BH 12, see the following topics in the documentation:

All developers: The new Progressive method of detecting connection speeds is not enabled by default. See the Progressive speed check topic in the documentation for information on how to enable it.

All developers: If you have not yet seen the the Rules Enforcement Technology introduced with BH 11, be sure to check out the video tutorials.

BrowserHawk4J developers: BH4J as of version 11.x and later uses Java version 1.4 as a base platform (previously 1.2). Therefore you must run Java 1.4 or higher to use BH4J 12.0 and later.

BrowserHawk4J developers: If you are using the BRWS4J you will find new SQL scripts in the BH4J zip distribution. ActiveX/.NET users will have their BRWS updated automatically.

Performing the upgrade to 12.0

This section outlines the general procedure for upgrading your software.

BrowserHawk ActiveX/.NET

If you have BrowserHawk 7.x or higher installed, you can simply run the automated BrowserHawk installation program. There is no need to remove your older BrowserHawk software first, as the installation of 12.0 will take care of this for you.

TIP: To minimize the chances of needing to reboot after the installation, stop the IIS Admin Service prior to running the installation program. Be sure to restart these services once the installation is complete.

ASP.NET developers: If you manually copied the BrowserHawk.dll into one of your bin directories, as would be the case if you used simple (manual) deployment, you must replace all those copies with the new DLL found in the BrowserHawk\dotnet folder after installation of 12.0. Otherwise you will continue to use the older version. If you did not manually copy the BrowserHawk.dll and used the automated installation previously, there is no need to manually copy over this file (the reference copy of BrowserHawk.dll and version in the GAC will be automatically updated). In any event, you most likely will need to recompile your web application under BH 12.0 and deploy it; otherwise you may receive a run-time error since the older version of BrowserHawk your site was compiled with is no longer present.

BrowserHawk4J (Java)

Generally it is recommended that you remove all BH4J files and follow the detailed installation instructions found in the readme.txt file within the BrowserHawk zip file.

If you replace your browserhawk.properties file, first take note of any customizations you made to your old file. In particular, be sure that the new file points to your BH4J license key.

If you are running BrowserHawk 11.x and want to just replace the main files that have changed, here is a list of the file changes between 11.x and 12.0 (if you are running BH 10.x or earlier please do a complete reinstall following the instructions in the README file):
- bhawk4j.jar
- maindefs.bdd
- readme.txt
- optional: copy of the updated Javadocs from the docs folder
- optional: updated brws4j SQL scripts
- optional: new speed.jsp and uploadspeed.jsp samples
See the installation instructions in the readme.txt file to determine which directories these files should be placed in.

Attention ColdFusion MX developers: You must stop and restart the ColdFusion MX Application Server Service before CFMX will recognize the new files.

Additional reading

See these links for more information about BrowserHawk 12: