Compiling .Net 2 with CR XI R2 in VS2008

[Former Member]

I developed an application in .Net 2 that uses CR XI R2 code classes to open reports and generate (export) reports to PDF files. This uses non of Crystals form or web control objects....all just code classes. The references for crystal assemblies are all for specific versions.

If I compile this .Net 2 app in VS2005 and run it works. If I compile from VS2008 I can see in the build that it is missing objects and indeed when it runs it crashes.

I know CR XI R2 is not compatible with VS2008 (for which I am sadly disappointed) but I would have guessed that just applied to objects in the designer or to 3.5 objects (.Net 2 code should still be able to reference CR 11.x objects). Why would just referencing a Crystal assembly by a .Net 2 project not be recognized in a build???

As a second question I thought VS2008 included CR 2008 basic.....but the CR assemblies that come with it seem to be earlier 10.x so if I attempt to reference those instead of the 11.x objects code bombs because it cannot open the XI R2 reports. Am I missing something or is CR 2008 indeed an earlier verison that CR XI?

[former_member184995]

Since CR XI R2 is not supported with .NET 2008 it isnt surprising that it will not work. There may be work arounds, but I do not know how to get it working.

Per your 2nd question, the CR that comes bundled with VS.NET 2008 is based on the 10 codestream, therefore you get the 10.x assembly references. If your XI R2 reports use any functionality that does not exist in the bundled version of CR.NET 2008 then they will fail (things like DCPs and such) and even if they did work would not be supported against an older/lower version of the runtimes.

Crystal Reports 2008 with Service Pack 0 is the only full version of Crystal Reports that is supported with VS.NET 2008. CR XI R2 will not be retrofitted to work with .NET 2008 as far as I know.