Install Visual COBOL / Enterprise Developer for Visual Studio 2017 version 4.0 without internet.

Problem:

Is it possible to install Visual COBOL / Enterprise Developer for Visual Studio 2017 version 4.0 on machine without internet.

Resolution:

Note, this is only currently known to affect Visual COBOL / Enterprise for Visual Studio 2017 version 4.0 (may affect later versions), and appears to be related to an issue caused by the Microsoft VSIX installer component.

When installing the VSIX components, this utility tries to make a connection to the internet to validate certificates (even though MSI does not). This behaviour may change in the future, depending how/if Microsoft change the way the VSIX installer works for Visual Studio 2017.

Prepare and install an offline installation of Microsoft Visual Studio 2017, guides are available for this on the Microsoft MSDN website. This offline Visual Studio 2017 will need to include prerequisites for the Visual COBOL product, e.g. (real names):

-Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreEditor
-Microsoft.Net.Component.4.5.TargetingPack
-Microsoft.Net.Component.4.5.2.TargetingPack
-Microsoft.Net.Component.4.6.1.TargetingPack
-Microsoft.VisualStudio.Debugger
-Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Debugger.JustInTime
-Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.GraphDocument
-Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.NuGet
-Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VisualStudioData
-Microsoft.Component.HelpViewer
-Microsoft.VisualCpp.Redist.14

Due to the Microsoft VSIX Installer not being able to verify certificates these will need to be installed manually.

Go to a machine that has the Visual COBOL Product installed successfully, locate the Digicert certificates (see details below).

Export the certificates from the machine where the successfully installed product is installed on via certmgr.exe (Windows Certificate manager tool).

Transfer the exported certificate files to the machine that has no internet connection/where Visual COBOL product will be installed.

Install the exported certificates on this machine (DigiCert Assured ID Root CA certificate in Trusted Root CAs, also in Intermediate CAs.).

At the time of generating this article the certificates are:

Now proceed to install the Visual COBOL / Enterprise Developer 4.0 software (GA version), this may fail.
Following that, install Visual COBOL / Enterprise Developer 4.0 Patch Update 2 (or later).
Following that run the Micro Focus MFVSIXinstall.exe tool (typically located  in path C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Micro Focus\\Enterprise Developer\\vsix\\), this installs the Micro Focus components to the Visual Studio 2017 instance.