Welcome to the Crystal Reports for Visual Studio Forum

Question

The Crystal Reports for Visual Studio team want to hear your questions, feedback and comments on our integration into Visual Studio 2005. 

If you're not familiar with Crystal Reports, you can quickly try it by using the Crystal Reports Application project template when creating a new windows application or a new website in Visual Studio 2005 Profession Edition and above. You can also drag n drop the CrystalReportsViewer from your toolbox in the Crystal Reports tray.

For information specific to your bundled version with Visual Studio 2005:

Visit our Business Objects Visual Studio 2005 Developer Zone.

Here you’ll find:

• Sample Code Projects
• Walkthroughs
• Online SDK Documentation
• What’s New to Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005
• and Compatibility Information 

You can also find the Crystal Reports for Visual Studio documentation on MSDN:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms345074(VS.80).aspx.

 

For information about the full Developer Edition of Crystal Reports XI:

 

Check out our Developer Resource Center. It has links to sample code (118 C# and VB samples), our Developer Library online SDK documentation, our Developer Zone, and Business Objects Support Forums.

 

More Support

If you can’t find an answer in this forum or at the Developer Resource Center the best option might be to try the Business Objects technical support team:

http://support.businessobjects.com/fix/contact.asp

Online/e-mail support is free for 2 incidents if you register your product.

http://support.businessobjects.com/crystalcare/assist/default.asp

They can help to reproduce the issue, find a work around and log them with our development team.

This forum is monitored by our team and we look forward to your comments and questions.

Thanks,

Ashley Lessard (Business Objects)

Crystal Reports for Visual Studio Program Manager

---

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Answer 1

Can you offer any assistance finding the right merge modules to deploy the application to the user's desktop?

Thank you!!!

Answer 2

Deploying an application to a user's desktop can be accomplished in 2 ways.

1) Using Click0nce deployment
2) Using Setup project deployment

ClickOnce deployment:

1) Start Visual Studio 2005 (Beta2)
2) Select File, then click New Project.
3) Choose a language (C#, VB, J#) and select Windows Application.
4) Create your application
5) In the Solution Explorer, right-click the project name, and click Properties
6) Click on the Publish tab, and then click Prerequisites.
7) In the Prerequisites dialog box, under the Choose which prerequisites to install list,
    select .NET Framework 2.0 and Crystal Reports for .NET.
8) back to the Solution Explorer, right-click the project name, and click Publish...
9) When the Publish Wizard dialog box appears, click Next.
10) In the Will the application be available offline? dialog box, select Yes, this
      application is available online or offline, and then click Next
11) From the Ready to Publish! dialog box, note the URL where the application is
      published, and then click Finish.
12) On the client machine, open a Web browser window
13) In the browser's address bar, type the URL of the published Web Site.
14) The Web Site contains links to install and run the Windows application with the
      prerequisites or without the prerequisites.
15)  Click the install link to install the prerequisites on the client machine.
15)  Click the install link to install your application on the client machine.

After the installation is complete, you can access your Windows application through the Start Menu.

A complete Crystal Reports ClickOnce Deployment Tutorial can be found at:
http://www.businessobjects.com/products/dev_zone/granville_beta/GranvilleBetaOnlineHelp/default.htm

An article on Deploying Windows Forms Applications with ClickOnce can be found at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnreal/html/realworld12012004.asp

Setup Project Deployment:

Setup Project Deployment is very similar to ClickOnce deployment, but here you can deploy either a windows application or a web application.

Here I will assume that you have already created your application

1) Start Visual Studio 2005 (Beta2)
2) Select File, then click New Project.
3) Choose Other Project Types and Setup and Deployment.
4) Select Setup Project or Web Setup Project 
5) Add in your project output, file, assembly...etc
6) In the Solution Explorer, right-click the setup project name, and click
    Properties
7) From the Property Pages dialog, click Prerequisites
8) In the Prerequisites dialog box, under the Choose which prerequisites to install list,
    select .NET Framework 2.0 and Crystal Reports for .NET.
9) Back to Property Pages dialog, click OK
10) In the Solution Explorer, right-click the setup project name, and click
    Build

Copy your setup application onto your client machine and install it.

Hope this helps,

-- Thanh




 

Answer 3

Actually... I think you might need to include MDAC 2.8 in the list of prerequisites as well.