I tried this for a managed program, and IT DID NOT WORK. In other words, there was no difference, even though there should have been (I can run this with the runtime production BAT file and same data, and I get different result, due to the runtime switches as mentioned earlier). Here is the resulting App.config contents:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<!--The following code declares a section group for application configuration -->
<sectionGroup name="MicroFocus.COBOL.Application">
<section name="Switches" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler" />
<section name="Environment" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler" />
</sectionGroup>
<!--The following code declares a section group for run-time configuration -->
<sectionGroup name="MicroFocus.COBOL.Runtime">
<section name="Tunables" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler" />
<section name="Switches" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler" />
</sectionGroup>
</configSections>
<MicroFocus.COBOL.Application>
<Switches />
<Environment>
<add key="COBSW" value="+B-F-N" />
</Environment>
</MicroFocus.COBOL.Application>
</configuration>
Also, please note what I said in my initial request, related to the version of VC and VS, etc.
Thanks