Two versions of Crystal within same VS Solution

[copco_online]

Hello,

We are going to be upgrading our system which uses many, many, Crystal Reports for dynamic document generation. Because there are so many, we would like to setup a solution where we can choose the report to run and then run the report side-by-side old approach (CRAXDDRT) to new approach (.NET).

I was thinking of creating a solution, that contains two projects, one that implements the "old" approach and one that implements the "new" approach. Am I asking for trouble, by including both in the same solution?

There is a lot of automation so, part of the project will be to re-write and make more efficient the methods of the old approach. However, the goal is to be able to view the report output (sending the complete assembled report to the viewer) side-by-side. Because of the shear amount of reports this would be most ideal for testing.

I'm looking to see if anyone sees anything to be concerned about with this approach. 

Thank you,

- N

[DonWilliams]

The problem is CRAXDDRT.dll is ONLY integrated into Visual Studio, you can't distribute it.

I believe CR 9 or 10 was the last supported RDC Engine.

So the problem you are going to have is side by side using CR 10 CRAXDDRT and SP 36 .NET runtime since you can't distribute CRAXDDRT with the current version of runtime.

The problem with going back to CR 10 .NET is it's no longer supported in current versions of the framework.

For the amount of time trying to get it to work I would suggest working on .NET only and leave the old embedded part in the old app.

[copco_online]

Hi Don,

[copco_online]

Hi Don,

Thank you for the reply.

The CRAXDDRT interop is part of the solution now, along with the Engine, Shared, and one other dll from the X version. If I maintain the references directly within the bin of the specific project, shouldn't I still be able to reference the .NET assemblies in a separate project within the same solution?  This is an intranet application. So, the release of the projects has occurred without issue to date.

[DonWilliams]

If it's working for you then keep doing it. As I said in the latest SP's you can't use the RDC. .NET has RAS which allows you to create your own Report designer to replace CRXDDRT...