Backward Compatibility with Previous Versions of Visual Studio

The following sections describe issues that you might encounter when migrating a project created using a Micro Focus product for a version of Visual Studio earlier than Visual Studio 2013.

Using different versions of Visual Studio to edit COBOL projects

Visual COBOL supports the Compatibility (Project Round-Tripping) feature in Visual Studio that enables you to use different versions of Visual Studio to edit the same COBOL application without the IDE upgrading the project format. For example, you can create a project in Visual Studio 2012, open and edit the project in Visual Studio 2013, then open it again in Visual Studio 2012 without the IDE forcing an upgrade.

The requirements and the restrictions include:

If you are switching between Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2013, your managed COBOL application can target versions of the .NET Framework 2 to 4.5.1.
Starting with Visual COBOL for Visual Studio 2012, the COBOL SQL CLR projects have a new project format. COBOL SQL CLR projects created with Visual Studio 2010 will be upgraded when opened in Visual Studio 2012 or later.