Viewing Crystal Reports from Other Workstations on Network

[Guest]

I have developed an application with VB.NET, which includes the Crystal
Reports (Visual Studio .NET 2003 edition) controls. I can run the
application on my PC and it does work fine, but on any other PC it throws an
error message once the user tries to view an existing Crystal Report file.
How can I use my application to view Crystal Reports from other PCs? Do I
have to include the .RPT files in the VB.NET project? What about when .RPT
files change?

Are there some good KB articles or something to guide me through all of
this? The client to use this application has Crystal Reports XI, which of
course is not the same version as I have on my PC with VS.NET.

- Thanks,

JRD

 

[Chris]

I have developed an application with VB.NET, which includes the Crystal
Reports (Visual Studio .NET 2003 edition) controls. I can run the
application on my PC and it does work fine, but on any other PC it throws an
error message once the user tries to view an existing Crystal Report file.
How can I use my application to view Crystal Reports from other PCs? Do I
have to include the .RPT files in the VB.NET project? What about when .RPT
files change?

Are there some good KB articles or something to guide me through all of
this? The client to use this application has Crystal Reports XI, which of
course is not the same version as I have on my PC with VS.NET.

- Thanks,

JRD

Are you making an install package for the second machine? To run
crystal reports on a seperate machine you need to make an install.
Crystal requires some files that do not come as part of the .Net
framework install. When you create the installer it will add the files
to the installer needed for crystal.

You do not have to have the rpt file included in your project, you can
reference it as a file.

Hope this helps.
Chris

 

[Guest]

Okay Chris, that may help significantly. I am still new to the VB.NET
environment, and was thinking that when the .EXE was built, I would have all
the supporting files available between it and the .NET framework installed on
other machines.

Should I have a way to built install packages included with my VS.NET
package, or what is the easiest way to create an install package?

- Thanks,

JRD

 

[Chris]

Okay Chris, that may help significantly. I am still new to the VB.NET
environment, and was thinking that when the .EXE was built, I would have all
the supporting files available between it and the .NET framework installed on
other machines.

Should I have a way to built install packages included with my VS.NET
package, or what is the easiest way to create an install package?

- Thanks,

JRD

:

There is an deployment type of project in Visual Studio. That is what
you need to use. It may depend on what version of visual studio you
have. Not too sure what comes in Pro vs Standard. Just do a google
search on deploying crystal reports with vb.net or look in the help
file, there are some step by steps in there.

You are correct that when you build a .net app all the files are there
for you already. The hiccup in your thinking is that crystal reports is
not part of the framework, it's a 3rd party tool that just happens to
ship with visual studio.

Hope it helps.
Chris

 

[Guest]

Hello again!

I built my install package and ran it on a second PC. The install worked
fine, and delivered my .EXE properly. It even appears to have delivered all
the Crystal*.* related .DLL files. However, when I try to view the actual
..RPT file from my program on this secondary PC, I am getting the error
message:

"Cannot find KeyCodeV2.dll, or invalid keycode"

Where do I go from here?

- Thanks,

JRD