Coexisting with earlier Micro Focus products

Run-time system error due to COBCONFIG
A run-time system error occurs if either the COBCONFIG or COBCONFIG_ environment variable is set when you run Visual COBOL applications or when you use Visual COBOL to edit or create projects and the configuration file it refers to contains entries that are not valid for Visual COBOL.

For example, this might happen if you have Net Express or Studio Enterprise Edition installed and either COBCONFIG or COBCONFIG_ is set for it.

To work around this issue, ensure that Visual COBOL is not running and then modify the configuration file by doing one of the following:

  • If the invalid tunable is not needed by another application, remove it from the run-time configuration file.
  • Add the following as the first line in the configuration file:
    set cobconfig_error_report=false
  • Unset COBCONFIG (or COBCONFIG_) or set it to another configuration file that does not contain the invalid tunable for the particular session you are running in.
Licensing error due to environment settings
The message "Micro Focus License Manager service is not running" can occur when you invoke a Net Express or Studio Enterprise Edition utility from Visual COBOL. This happens when the tool is invoked with Visual COBOL environment settings while it requires the Net Express or Studio Enterprise Edition ones.

This happens when you edit files such as .dat that have a file association with Net Express or Studio Enterprise Edition. This can also happen when invoking a utility within the Net Express or Studio Enterprise Edition products as an external tool from Visual COBOL.

You can workaround this problem in Visual COBOL as follows:

  1. Create a batch file that unsets COBREG_PARSED before the tool is invoked. The batch file contains:
    Set COBREG_PARSED=
    Call [PathToUtility] %1

    Where PathToUtility is the path to the Net Express or Studio Enterprise Edition utility.

  2. In the Visual Studio IDE, add the batch file instead of the utility itself as an external tool.

    This ensures that the proper environment is established when running that tool.

Performance Monitoring Issue
Having an Enterprise Developer product and Studio Enterprise Edition 6.0 or Server Enterprise Edition 6.0 installed on the same machine, and trying to uninstall one of them, breaks performance monitoring and it is not possible to see the Enterprise Server performance counters. To resolve this problem, run the installer of the product you wish to retain on your machine, and repair the installation.