The "-f" command-line option ensures that the runtime does not perform user interface functions when running as a CGI program. It is recommended for both Windows and UNIX CGI implementations.
When executed with "-f", the server runtime suppresses warning messages that are normally displayed in a message box. When the runtime shuts down because of an error that is not handled by the COBOL program, it constructs an HTML page containing the shutdown message and sends it to the standard output stream before terminating.