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Crystal Reports for Visual Studio and .NET Core 5. Any plans?

Have any plans to develop a version of Crystal Reports for Visual Studio for .NET 5 in the near future (we plans transform
our apps from net framework 4.8 to .net core 5)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Hi All,

So Crystal Reports is based on and written in C++ technologies. It always has been since even before my time when I started with CR 5 (1997). Back then it was 16 or 32 bit and came on multiple 3.5" floppies. At the same time we released CR for VS 6, through a COM wrapper around the core crpe32.dll with various OCX wrappers and other COM based wrappers.

Crpe32.dll is written in C++...

In the next few years we expanded and wrote the RDC - Report Designer Component, another COM wrapper based on crpe32. We had a Developer living at Microsoft's head quarters working with their developer to integrate our core components into .NET.

As of CR 9 we began deprecating the RDC, because MS released the new .NET Framework.

R&D began expanding the CR for VS .NET components with assistance from MS because MS announced they were dropping COM and wanted everyone to move to .NET. So we dropped the RDC and moved fully to .NET, which is just another wrapper around our core engine.

Back then you had to use the Full Framework, 1.x Light would not work with CR due to limitations had.

Of course with industry feedback MS caved and continued to support COM, but we had committed so the Framework was the new SDK for CR.

Now comes Mobile and the new MS CORE framework, still based on the original Framework ( sort of ) but in it's early days was quite limited, nothing CR could use. Core 5 is much further along but still not a direct replacement for 4.8.

As Mike noted:

"However, .NET Framework will continue to be serviced with monthly security and reliability bug fixes. Additionally, it will continue to be included with Windows, with no plans to remove it."

It's not going away.....

If you want to use CR you also have the option to use Java, which is cross platform and the RESTFul SDK ( for BOE ).

There are other options to be able to move the Core 5 applications, process the reports on a server and stream the results mobile for example. Write a DLL to do the report processing etc....

I've had multiple discussions with R&D and it's just not possible at this time for them to integrate/use Core 5, not saying at some time in the future it may be possible but all depends on what MS does.

It will require a complete re-write to un-wrap COM and be more platform open, something at this time can't be justified in the costs.

So we know you all want Core 5+ support but due to the nature of our SDK it's something that can't be integrated into at this time.

FYI - crpe32 has been around since the dinosaurs still roamed the earth, it's been optimize to the point where 90%+ of the time it's waiting for results or input from some source for the next job to perform.

Nothing else I can say, to continue using CR .NET you have to use the full framework.

It's just another framework MS is developing that doesn't fully support C++ components:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/porting/cpp-cli

So converting our core crpe32.dll C++ engine to Core will have huge limitations, at this point it's not an option. Possibly some future version of CORE may fully support C++ using a wrapper of some kind but not now...

We have a place to add Enhancement Requests, our Product and developers do monitor it so post your request here:

https://www.sap.com/about/customer-involvement/influence-adopt.html

Not saying it will ever happen but at least you can vote it up.

Don

Update:

So Microsoft did this to us around CR 8.5 days, they said no more COM support, so we wrote our .NET components that wrapped around our C++ dll's and COM to work with .NET framework. Then you, the industry, pushed back and MS continued to support COM. By then it was too late to go back to COM for us.

So we've been through this before, You need to push back to Microsoft and get them to continue supporting .NET 4.8 or make 5.x+ support 4.8 applications. By the way, as noted, they are not ending life for 4.x, just not doing enhancements.

dw53
Explorer
0 Kudos

Thank you for the details.

As others have commented, there is COM interop starting .NET Core 3 on Windows.

Is .NET 5 Support on Windows-only using COM (not crossplatform) something R&D can take a close look at again in the future?

Answers (13)

Answers (13)

max_fletcher
Explorer

This is a shame because .NET Core DOES have support for calling into COM since .NET Core 3.0.

Cross platform development isnt strictly a requirement when making a .NET Core library, look at the Windows Desktop library Microsoft have developed to port things like WPF and WinForms over to .NET Core 3 (it only works on windows).

So whilst having the runtime work on .NET Core wouldn't provide us with cross platform support it would allow us to use the current .NET tooling and libraries, which would actually be quite useful.

Currently you are stuck with older tooling and libraries from microsoft if you are making a project that requires the Crystal Runtime.

ido_millet
Active Contributor
patrick_simons2
Participant

Hi Don, Everyone,

I don't think that most people actually want or need the CR components to be cross-platform.

I think most people just want to be able to use the CR .NET classes in a .NET 5 or .NET 6 project.

For this it should not be too complicated to just port your existing .NET wrapper to .NET Core. You won't have to reimplement your c++ DLLs at all. It won't be cross platform, sure, but I don't think that's what most people care about.

If you could just point that out to your R&D department and get their reaction, that would be great.

Regards,

Patrick

relizondo
Explorer

Hello,

I can only assume that if projects such as Windows Forms and WPF (Windows exclusive) work on .NET 6 and 7 there is no reason why Crystal Reports can't do the same thing. Like others have mentioned, most people are not interested in running Cristal Reports under Linux (or similar), instead, we want to continue to run the apps in Windows.

Thanks.

culpepperj
Discoverer

VS2022 is out with .Net 6 built in. Right now, CR is the only add-on preventing me from upgrading all of my solutions. I plan on searching for a replacement to the CR WPF viewer for my imbedded reporting needs.

.NET Framework is dead, its end of life is clearly defined (see above). If CR does not move to support .NET 5.0 (which is not a "light" version as I have seen stated here a few times) then there is no long-term future for Crystal Reports or applications that use it. If you don't decide to support .NET 5.0 then every developer needs to seriously consider replacing/rewriting all Crystal Report now, or they may have a VERY serious problem in a few years. I'm sure stuff will run on 4.8 for a few years, but eventually it will stop.

Official .NET 4.8 End of Life Statement:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/migration-guide/versions-and-dependencies#:~:text=....

".NET Framework 4.8 is the last version of .NET Framework, and no further versions will be released. However, .NET Framework will continue to be serviced with monthly security and reliability bug fixes. Additionally, it will continue to be included with Windows, with no plans to remove it."

Others:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/faq/dotnet-framework

https://betanews.com/2019/05/07/future-of-dotnet/

https://www.iowacomputergurus.com/insights/article/microsoft-announces-end-of-net-framework-net-core...

Christy, Don, thanks, for info.

We do not plan to work cross platform but we want to take advantage of the new features in .Net 5 (.Net framework 4.8 stops developing). It is a pity that there will be no CR because there is not much to replace you with.

marciomonego
Discoverer

Hi don.williams, everyone,

I'm trying to upgrade an old application that I carry since VB6. All other upgrades along of this time were successful without many problems, but..

NET5/NET times brought me problems even more difficult to solve:

After all them solved I faced the CR challenge. After red all the posts and the SAP vision about NET5/6 and my app relies on >50 complex CR reports, I do consider to have a .NET Framework 4.8 Winforms project to be deployed along with a Met6 Winforms project.

I faced many issues and made a prof of opening a form of .Net 4.8 from a Net6 Winforms app. It worked.

But if I put a CR Viewer on it NET cannot show the >Net 4.8 form because of removed controls in NET 5, the very deprecated StatusBar, and it were used on CR Viewer yet.

Then I tried a new Winforms 3.1 to host the app and open the 4.8 form with CR Viewer. Yes it works too, but...

My Winforms app relies strongly in Visual Basic My namespace, and it were not ported to 3.1, and Microsoft point to upgrade to NET5 to solve this.

My question: Can you discuss with R&D the possibility to replace the deprecated and removed StatusBar control of CR Viewer?

The CR Viewer relies on this control in very simple scenario of showing total, current pages and the zoom factor.

I think its possible to replace with ToolStripStatusLabel and others.

czupet
Member

It's goodbye Crystal Reports.

We are definitely looking at the alternatives. It's a huge undertaking for us, but dead end is not an option.

No plans due to COM components, we simply can't work with that version without a full redesign.

If you want to work cross platform SDK use Java.

Maybe it´s time to re-think it... We´re migrating to Fast Report and maybe many are doing it too...

With no .NET 5.0 support on the horizon, you are essential telling your desktop customers that we need to move away from Crystal. MS has fully embraced the desktop road map with .NET 5.0 , .NET Framework ends with 4.8. .NET CORE/5.0 is the future

jose_angel
Member

We have been developing reports with crystal reports for our .net applications for years We have reached 4.8 but we want to move forward to improve the performance of our software, mainly oriented to client-server applications

As I gather from your comment, we will have to leave Crystal Reports in order to switch to .Net 5 6 7 ..?

It is very worrying.

We too are moving from .NET Framework to .NET 5 (and then 6) and we need to run on a linux environment. We have a enough code already written in .NET that the .NET Framework ➡ .NET 5 ➡ .NET 6 path makes the most amount of sense for us. We won't be switching to Java.

don.williams, as it has been more than a year since the last posting I wanted to see if SAP's plans have changed. Is the Java version the only cross platform compatible version? Are there still no plans for .NET 5/6 support?

V/r

DellSC
Active Contributor

I don't work for SAP, but AFAIK, there are no plans to completely redevelop the .NET SDK for .NET core, which can work on non-Windows OSs. Currently, the SDK is dependent on some COM objects, which will not work on anything but Windows. I'm sure don.williams can correct me if I'm wrong, though.

-Dell

.NET Core supports multiple platforms but also OS specific APIs. It does support Windows specific APIs and Windows API COM. There is no reason this would not work also for CR.

runju
Explorer

Is going open source an option for CR?

fabriziocs
Explorer
0 Kudos

Bad news for those who still hoped for a solution from SAP, support for visual studio will end in 2025

SAP Crystal Products - End of Mainstream Maintenance Dates

Update:

only the 32 bit runtime end support on December 2025, the 64 bit runtime it's extended to 2027

paolo_fornari3
Participant
0 Kudos

fabriziocs
What do you mean exactly ?

fabriziocs
Explorer
0 Kudos

paolo_f

Intendo dire che SAP decidendo di interrompere il supporto di crystal report per visual studio difficilmente farà investimenti per farlo funzionare su .net core

0 Kudos

Has anything changed with the .NET 6 entry? (maybe with these limitations only for windows like wpf)