Unknown Crystal Report Template Version

[Former Member]

I have been assigned to a project originally written in VB4 with Crystal Reports templates written in 1996.  Although the code was successfully converted to another language, I am unable to open the CR template with CR 8.5 or CR 11.5. Does anyone know how to determine what version the CR templates were created in with only the *.rpt?  Is there a method to open the templates if they will not open in CR 8.5 or CR 11.5?  There are calulations within each report that are nearly impossible to reverse engineer.  Also, anyone that knew anything about them is no longer around.

-Kevin

[former_member183750]

Can you attach one of these "templates"?

Click on "Use advanced editor"

Rename the template extension to txt

Attach.

BTW., what is the extension on these templates?

- Ludek

Senior Support Engineer AGS Product Support, Global Support Center Canada

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[Former Member]

This may have been generated from the Crystal Reports that was shipped with Visual Basic 4.0. From the documentation available, there is no way to know for certain.

I changed the extension name of the CR template from “rpt” to “txt” and attached it to the advanced editor.  Clicking the “Post Message” button yielded the message “The content type of this attachment is not allowed”.

I attempted the same steps again with the same results.  The file is only 28 kb.

Please advise

[former_member183750]

Perhaps trying another browser?

- Ludek

[Former Member]

My last attempt in sending you this file was using Internet Explorer 9.0.

Thanks to Firefox, please change the attached file's extension from "txt" to "rpt".

YEAH! Message was edited by: Kevin Johnston

eis2.txt.zip

[former_member183750]

Interesting

I was able to open the report in the report designer in VS IDE. Looking at the connection, I see that the report was created off of an Access database and used the native connection (PDBDAO.DLL).

I was also able to open the report in the CR 2013 designer.

I am not able to open this report sing the .NET APIs, InProc RAS, or Report Doc. I always get Load Report Failed error message. This may possibly be because I do not have the Access database.

Now, you mention problems opening the report using CR XI R2 (v. 11.5). Was this when you are using the designer, or at runtime? You should be able to open the report in the CR XI R2 designer, point it at the Access database and refresh the report. This would adjust the report to use the database driver crdb_dao.dll as opposed to pdbdao.dll. Then save the report as v. 11.5. The report should now open in code or designer without issues.

Please note that Access 2010 and later can not be connected to using the DAO engine and you must use ODBC. Again, the conversion would be done in the CR designer.

- Ludek

[former_member183750]

Oh, one more thing. The report appears to be using two unlinked tables. This is never a good idea as CR is a relational database writing utility. And by definition, unlinked tables have no relationship...

And actually, when you try this with a new report, you will get a warning that you should not be doing this type of design.

- Ludek