Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.3 for Visual Studio 2015 > Deployment > Deploying COBOL Applications > Deploying Native COBOL Applications > Writing Your Own Setup Program

Writing Your Own Setup Program

Note: The following applies to native COBOL only.

You can write your own setup program for applications that run under a COBOL run-time system, such as COBOL Server. Setting up an application that runs under Enterprise Server requires that the application is deployed to Enterprise Server, but there are no other major considerations.

When you provide your own setup program for an application that uses a COBOL run-time system without Enterprise Server, first you need to decide how your end users will install your application. Will they install your application together with its own run-time system or will they install your application separately from the run-time system, so that the run-time system can be shared with other applications?

The main ways of packaging an application and COBOL Serverwithout Enterprise Server are:

As an application using a shared run-time system - This run-time system is used by multiple COBOL applications on an end user's machine. It is installed in its own directory, separate from any applications. There is only one run-time system installed on the machine.
You use the supplied setup program to install a shared COBOL Server and to set up the relevant registry entries.
As an application using its own application-specific run-time system - This run-time system is installed with and is used by a sole COBOL application.
We recommend installing the full COBOL Server without Enterprise Server. However for backward compatibility, you can still select the run-time files to install, some of which are mandatory, such as the licensing files.

You create an installation procedure that installs your application and, in the same directory, installs COBOL Server (or the selected run-time files). Your installation procedure also needs to set up licensing.