Existing VS COBOL II programs compiled with NORES run without change and provide the same results as before. You do not need to link-edit these programs with Language Environment; however, you will not be able to get IBM service support for these NORES applications unless you link-edit these programs with Language Environment.
Any load modules containing programs compiled with NORES that use the VS COBOL II MIXRES or RTEREUS runtime option must be link-edited with Language Environment. After you link-edit the load module with Language Environment, it will have access to all Language Environment services (except callable services) in all but three cases:
If the program was not link-edited with an object module produced using the IGZBRDGE macro, and if this is the only load module in an application or the first load module in an application with multiple load modules, after link-editing with Language Environment, it will exhibit NORES behavior. (That is, the load module will not have access to Language Environment services.) The reason you must link-edit this application with Language Environment is to ensure that the OS/VS COBOL initiated termination, like STOP RUN, will work.
If you need this type of program to have access to Language Environment services, you can either include an Enterprise COBOL program in the application, or explicitly INCLUDE either the Language Environment IGZCBSN or IGZCBSO bootstrap routine when link-editing the application with Language Environment.
If this is the only load module in an application or the first load module in an application with multiple load modules, you must explicitly INCLUDE either the Language Environment IGZCBSN or IGZCBSO bootstrap routine when link-editing the load module with Language Environment. Otherwise, the load module is not supported.
Any load modules that contain VS COBOL II programs that are run in a multitasking environment must be link-edited with Language Environment. After the VS COBOL II NORES programs are link-edited with Language Environment they will exhibit RES-like behavior. As an alternative to link-editing the programs to get them to run in a multitasking environment, you can compile all of the programs of the multitasking application with the Enterprise COBOL compiler.