I have inherited a legacy ASP.NET 1.1 project developed in Visual Studio 2003 and deployed to the (external) end user on a Windows 2000 server.
The project makes use of Crystal Reports 9.1.5000 which must be bundled with Visual Studio 2003 somehow, since it all compiled and worked on the dev system (Windows XP) without my having to install any developer version of CR. There are about 25 reports (rendered on Web pages) which I believe were built using Report Designer.
Since Windows 2000 is no longer supported by Microsoft, the customer's IT service provider is insisting that the app be migrated to Windows 2008 R2. I have got it running on that platform except for the CR screens, which crash on trying to load a CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.ReportDocument. (CR 9.1 is not supported on this OS, I find).
I have tried migrating the app to Visual Studio 2010 and using the latest CR, but javascript incompatibilities I have run into mean this would be a major undertaking (there are hundreds of pages and popups to test/fix and I just don't have time, although clearly I will have to bite this bullet eventually). Therefore I need to be able to build in VS2003 but deploy on Windows 2008.
Looking at this forum my only chance seems to be to install CR XI R2 SP6 on the dev system and deploy the corresponding msms on the target system. There may still be problems as it is not officially supported on Win2008 (only Win7), but they can maybe be fixed. I can't use 10.5 (which is supported on Win2008) as it doesn't support VS2003, according to https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Which+Crystal+Reports+assembly+versions+are+supported+in+which+versions+of+Visual+Studio+.NET
I tried to install CR XI R2 SP6 on my dev system but was asked for a product key which I don't have. My company does not have any support arrangement with SAP so I cannot apply for a key, which was not required with the previous CR version. (Oddly, when I installed the latest developer CR 13 as noted above, I was not asked for a product key either, so I don't understand this requirement. Is upgrade to XI R2 not free? Did I download the wrong installer?)
What options do I have?
Desperately yours,
Jeremy Tinkler