Crystal Reports 8.5 (old version) with TLS 1.0 disabled does not work

[former_member603973]

Can someone please confirm what version of Crystal Reports can run with TLS 1.0 disabled (e.g. is compatible with new versions of TLS, i.e. TLS 1.1, TLS 1.2)?

I am testing a legacy application with a very old version of Crystal Reports (8.5) and performed 2 tests:
1- Using SQL Server 2008 R2 Express SP3 with all of its components (server and client) updated with the required patches to make it TLS 1.2 compatible.

2- Using SQL Server 2012 SP4 and the new TLS 1.2 compatible OLE DB provider/driver MSOLEDBSQL.

The .NET application is referencing the Crystal Reports DLL Interop.CRAXDDRT.dll. When the TLS 1.0 protocol is disabled, the call to the LogOnServer method throws an exception.

i.e.

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: Server has not yet been opened.
at CRAXDRT.ApplicationClass.LogOnServer(String pDllName, String pServerName, Object pDatabaseName, Object pUserID, Object pPassword)

Could someone please confirm that Crystal Reports version 8.5 will not work with TLS 1.0? i.e. it is somewhat tied to that protocol

If so, I would I have to upgrade my version of Crystal Reports?

If so, what is the minimum version of Crystal Reports that I would need that can run with only new TLS protocols enabled. i.e. 1.1, 1.2

Thank you

[DellSC · Accepted solution]

Version 8.5 is not just old, it's ancient! 🙂 It came out in the late '90's and has been deprecated since 2001-ish. So it had no way of knowing about the new TLS protocols.

You will have to upgrade - Crystal 2016 is the latest version. You will also have to upgrade your application. The .dll that you're using is the old RDC component that was deprecated about 10 years ago. So, you'll have to upgrade to the new .NET SDK, which works differently. There is lots of information about the new SDK here: https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Crystal+Reports%2C+Developer+for+Visual+Studio+Downloads. That page has links to sample applications and to download the free SDK. When you get to the download page, you'll use the orange button to get the executable that integrates the SDK into Visual Studio (2010 or newer - Community edition will work with it but the Express edition won't.) The blue buttons are for the various runtime installs that you would use to deploy your application - "bit-ness" is based on the application, not on the machine where you're installing the application. Do not compile for "Any CPU" - explicitly select either W32-X86 or W64-X64. The SDK also includes a report design tool that you can use instead of the full version of Crystal when designing reports.

The other thing you need to be aware of is that the internal structure of the .rpt file changed with version 9, so you will have to upgrade each of your reports so they'll work with the SDK. In 8.5 and below you could manually update the query that Crystal generated. That is no longer possible. Instead, you would have to create a new report that uses a "Command", which is just the full SQL Select statement for all of the data in the report. Of course, you can still just join tables and views together like you could in the old version, but if you need to tweak the query at all it needs to be in a command instead. Let me know if you will need to work with commands and I'll post a link with instructions for how to do that.

Good Luck!

-Dell

[former_member603973]

Thank you for your answers! Does anybody know the details concerning pricing and licensing if one wishes to use the latest version of Crystal Reports? More specifically, Crystal Reports for Visual Studio.

[former_member11696]

Dell is absolutely correct...

And the Database Driver names have changed so you will need to manually update each report using the designer to select the new DB driver.

And CR 8.5 is not side by side so CR for VS will need to be installed on a new PC.

And see this KBA for more details:

https://i7p.wdf.sap.corp/sap/support/notes/2269180

Don