How to Upgrade Crystal Reports 8.0 to higher or latest version of Crystal reports

[Former Member]

Hi,

We have around 1000+ Crystal Reports in v8.0 and available from ASP.Net website running in .Net Framework 1.0. We want to upgrade the crystal reports from v8.0 to higher or latest version of Crystal reports along with the .Net framework of web application.

Can you please guide us how we can upgrade crystal reports 8.0 to higher version?

[DellSC · Accepted solution]

Also, you need to be aware that the internal structure of the .rpt file changed dramatically with Crystal 9. This will have several effects on your upgrade process.

1. ALL of your reports will have to be opened and the saved in the new version of Crystal in order to update the .rpt file structure.

2. If you made any manual changes to the SQL that Crystal generated, your report will look like it upgraded, but it didn't - the visual joins are there, but they won't work and you will have cartesian joins (thus speaks experience with this issue!) Crystal no longer allows manual changes to the SQL that it generates. Instead, you need to create a Command that includes ALL of the data required for your main report or individual subreport. For more information about how to work with Commands, see this blog post: https://blogs.sap.com/2015/04/01/best-practices-when-using-commands-with-crystal-reports/.

-Dell

[former_member11696]

Licensing Link is on the download page.

If it's for internal use only I believe it's still free., License Doc should explain it though.

Don

[Former Member]

Hi Don,

Thanks. I have upgraded the CR from v8.0 to CR for VS2013 on my local system on Windows 7 and i am now trying to deploy the application to server- Windows 2012. I installed the CR redistributable package 64 bit (CRforVS_redist_install_64bit_13_0_21.zip) and got error mentioned below..

After seeing some articles i also installed the 32 bit edition of CR redstributable package(CRforVS_redist_install_64bit_13_0_20.zip) but still i get same error, can you please help.

ErrorUnable to cast COM object of type 'CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.Controllers.ReportSourceClass' to interface type 'CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.Controllers.ISCRReportSource'. This operation failed because the QueryInterface call on the COM component for the interface with IID '{98CDE168-C1BF-4179-BE4C-F2CFA7CB8398}' failed due to the following error: No such interface supported (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004002 (E_NOINTERFACE)).

Thanks
Pradeep

[former_member11696]

There is no upgrade option to upgrade CR 8.x to current versions. That option expired a long time ago.

Go here to get a new version of CR:

https://www.sap.com/products/crystal-reports.html

Go here to get the runtime for CR 2011 and above:

https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Crystal+Reports%2C+Developer+for+Visual+Studio+Downloads

On that page is a link for a Parameter test app, use that to update the reports in code. You should upgrade them in CR 2016 first, lots of changes so you really should validate them in CR Designer and fix as required.

Don

[Former Member]

Hi Don,

Thanks again for the information.I am following the upgrade as per your advise.

In the mean while please let me know whether Crytsal Reports for VS 2013 is free or paid? Ours is an intranet application so can this be run for free? Please let me know.

Thanks
Pradeep

[former_member11696]

Hello,

The new runtime is now only available from here:

https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Crystal+Reports%2C+Developer+for+Visual+Studio+Downloads

Requires VS 2010 or above.

CR 8 uses legacy DB drivers and those were all updated in CR 9 and above.

You could maybe use ReplaceConnection() API to update the reports to the newer drivers.

Update one of your reports and then use this utility to get the ReplaceConnection API's to use and values:

1553921 - Is there a utility that would help in writing database logon code?

On the download page there are also a Parameter app and Printer app you can use for examples.

They are Windows desktop app's but only used to update your reports, not sure if VS will update your old WEB site to ASPX. you will likely need to rewrite all of your CR code to use CR .NET.

Don

[Former Member]

Hi Don,

Thanks for the information.

We are initially looking at confirming whether it is possible to upgrade the Crystal reports v8.0 to the higher version? Can you please confirm if this is possible?

The Crystal reports are ".rpt" extension, can we open them in Visual studio after installing Crystal Reports 2013 or 2016 and save it to new version? Will that suffice, please guide us.

Thanks

Pradeep