The documentation for mongo::client::initialize() and terminate()/shutdown() is not very clear on how and when to use these functions. Testing shows that initialize() must be called on the Windows platform in order to connect to a database server.

Based on hints in CXX-283, it appears that initialize() should be called just once per process.

In the event that someone creates a MongoDB driver using the legacy API and therefore does not control the process that the driver is loaded into, how would this be used? If the driver is stopped ( for example, on Windows the driver dll is unloaded), will shutdown() stop any stray threads created by initialize()?