Upgrading CR from v8.5 to v10

[Oscar54]

Hello everyone, I am a VB programmer. We are currently using VB6 with CR 8.5. I create reports within VB and then users can view them using a CR viewer. We are looking to upgrade to CR v10, but I know that the CR viewer we are currently using does not work with v10. I have done a lot of research on this topic but still unsure on how to go about solving this issue. What do you suggest we use, so our users can view the reports with out a full version on CR 10. Thanks for your help

Oscar

 

[vidru]

If you're building the reports within the VB IDE (.dsr's), then you'll just need to change your references to point to the 'new' versions of craxddrt.dll and craxdrt.dll, and replace the Viewer component with the newer version.

Since you're using .dsr's, you'll have to recomplie and redistribute the application anyway, so my suggestion would be to download the CR 10 Merge Modules, and use them in a new Installation package for your application. When the installer runs, it will install your application, and extract the necessary .dlls for the client workstations to be able to run CR 10 (and older) reports without CR being installed.

-dave

 

[Oscar54]

Dave, thanks for the quick reply. I am using .dsr. I am looking into your suggestion. I just wanted ask you one more thing. We currently deploy are application via Novell Zenworks and when a VB app is deploy. We deploy a CR Viewer so our users can view the reports that are embedded within the VB App. With these CR 10 merge modules, we won't need do deploy any kind of viewer?

Thanks again

Oscar

 

[vidru]

I was assuming that you've got a viewer form within the application using the Crystal Report Viewer Control (crviewer.dll). If the Viewer application is outside of the main application, it would need to have the ability to handle reports created in CR 10. The 8.5 CR Viewer component works for me with CR 9 reports, if that helps...

-dave

 

[Oscar54]

Dave, I do use a form with a CR viewer control. What I am saying is that when we deploy an application the network engineers deploy some kind of CR viewer for the users that don't have a CR installed on their PC. This was set up before my time. I don't know if this is the correct way of doing this. If this is correct then I want to know do we need to still deploy some kind of CR viewer for the user that don't have CR installed on their PC. I tried to run an application with out this CR viewer or a full version of CR and the reports part of the application did not work until I installed CR on this PC. Thanks Again

Oscar

 

[vidru]

If you create an installer for the application that includes the CR merge modules, there is no reason why you would need to install Crystal on every machine, and no reason why you would need a standalone Viewer application.

You can get some more info on the runtime files for CR 10 applications here:
Crystal Reports 10 Developer Runtime Help

I think it's the same Runtime.chm file that comes with CR 10.

-dave

 

[Oscar54]

Dave, Thanks for all your help. I have read more into the merge modules and I think I understand now what I need to do. Thanks

Oscar

 

[Oscar54]

Dave, I was trying different things to get a simple application to work with out using a CR runtime viewer and use the merge modules that you suggested and it still did not work for me. As I told you before the Network Engineers told me not to include any CR files in my application package because they deploy their own CR runtime view. When I created my deployment package the package I did included these files: craxdrt.dll, crpe32.dll, crviewer.dll and the .msm files as well. This did not work, I got error stating that "Physical Database not found". This PC did not have CR installed on it. When I did install CR the application it worked. Can you make any more suggestions? I am I including all the files that are needed and do I have to do something else with these merge modules? Thanks

Oscar

 

[vidru]

You're probably missing one of the connectivity .dlls. If you check out the Runtime.chm file, it will give you a list of what .dlls need to be deployed for the different connectivity types.

I don't understand why, if you've got a report viewer built in to the application, that the "Network Engineers" are deploying a separate Viewer?

-dave

 

[Oscar54]

Dave, really appreciate you helping me out. I got some more back ground information for the Network Engineers on why they deploy a CR runtime viewer. The say they do this, so if someone needs to view a CR report that is not in a VB application they can do this using the runtime viewer. They think this viewer can in CR v8.5 and it is like an application that deploys a lot of file and dll's. They would like to keep this way of deploying VB application. What do you suggest? Thanks


Oscar

 

[vidru]

Is the Report Viewer application an in-house application, or is it a third-party product that they purchased? If it's in-house, it could be upgraded to use the CR 10 runtime files, which would allow you to use the merge modules without issue.

I have a client that has a similar issue - they have a proprietary application with a group of canned reports. When he tried to add a customized report, the application would gripe, and the report couldn't be run. The solution was to deploy a report viewer application that could run reports outside of the main app.

-dave

 

[Oscar54]

Dave, no this runtime viewer is a Crystal Reports application that I think came in CR v8.5. When the CR runtime viewer is installed it creates a Seagate Software folder in Program files that includes a lot of different files. I am sure that I can get my VB application to work without any kind of out side runtime viewer, but I am still having problems with the merge modules. What do I do with them? Do I just include them with my application package or do I have to extract the file included in these .msm files? Not sure what do. Thanks

Oscar

 

[vidru]

Ok, so they're using the 'Report Distribution Expert' to compile reports. Got it...

If you create your installation package with Visual Studio installer or a Wise product, you should be able to add merge modules to the pagkage (I haven't tried it with the P&D wizard for VB6). You don't need to do anything with the merge modules, other than adding them to the package.

Maybe you should read this: Creating an RDC 10 Deployment Package. Everything you need to know about adding the merge modules to your installer is in there.

-dave

 

[Oscar54]

Dave, thanks for all your help. You definitely help me understand what is going on here and what I need to do. Thanks a lot.

Oscar