Visual COBOL Installation Options

To install Visual COBOL you run vcvs2017_80.exe which contains a number of product .msi files (Windows Installer packages). When run, vcvs2017_80.exe performs some initial system checks then sequentially installs the .msi files.

vcvs2017_80.exe can take a number of parameters, enabling you to specify a number of different types of installation:

Standard Installation
- Format:
- vcvs2017_80.exe
- Summary:
- Full installation including License Manager and Visual COBOL. During installation you can specify options including the location to which the components are installed.
Non-standard Installation
- Format:
- vcvs2017_80.exe skipmstools=1
- Summary:
- Full installation, minus the Microsoft package dependencies. A standard installation downloads and installs the latest Microsoft Build Tools (for Visual Studio 2017) and Windows SDK packages. Refer to Microsoft Package Dependencies to see if you will depend on these packages, and if not, use the option above to skip installation of the packages, thus reducing the footprint and duration of the installation process.
Non-interactive Installation
- Format:
- vcvs2017_80.exe /passive
- Summary:
- Full installation, but the components are installed non-interactively using default options and directories.
Silent Installation
- Format:
- start /wait vcvs2017_80.exe /q
- Summary:
- Full installation, but the components are installed non-interactively with no user interface, using default options and directories.
Modified Silent Installation
- Format:
- start /wait vcvs2017_80.exe /q InstallFolder=d:\otherdirectory
- Summary:
- Full installation, but the components are installed non-interactively with no user interface, and Visual COBOL is installed to d:\otherdirectory.

To see what parameters you can use, execute the following from the command line: vcvs2017_80.exe /?.

Note:

Log files that are created during installation are saved in the folder specified by the TEMP environment variable. To change the location or name of the files, use the /log parameter on your setup command line and specify the path and file name, for example: filename /log d:\temp\log.txt. This creates a log file, named log.txt, in the d:\temp directory.