Cant add Crystal References in VS 2008 project

[Former Member]

Hi

I have a VS 2008 environment. I have three dll references I want to add to my project and I dont see them in .NET or COM tabs in Add Reference dialog. Weird, I can see them good in other projects (references to GAC assemblies) of an existing project, but once I delete them, I cant add them again because they dont show up in the Add reference. How do I make them show up?

My dev environment is: Windows Server 2008 64bit, VS 2008. If I can add the reference, I am done with my project. Dll's I want to add are:

CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine

CrystalDecisions.ReportSource

CrystalDecisions.Shared

I looked at this link and he didnt explain how he added the references in registry. Does anyone know about this?

http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/TechOff/451042-VS2008-cannot-add-reference-while-developing-on-x64-h...

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Only reason I know why the references would not be there is if Crystal Reports was installed before .NET. See if reinstalling Crystal Reports adds the assemblies to the GAC.

Ludek

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Its the opposite actually. .NET was installed prior to Crystal Reports run time distributable. Also, I uninstalle and reinstalled and still doesnt work and I also tried installing the Crystal Reports Developer and still wouldnt see it.

Any help is much appreciated.

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

See if applying SP 0 will help (you need it in any case for .NET 2008):

https://smpdl.sap-ag.de/~sapidp/012002523100007528552008E/cr2008_sp0.zip

(not being able to add the assemblies is not the usual issue, but SP 0 is required for .NET 2008)

If that does not work, do you see the assemblies in the GAC? They should have version 12.0.2000.0

Ludek

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

There are a couple of things I see here:

.NET was installed prior to Crystal Reports run time distributable

You can't install just the runtime - you have to have the full version of Crystal.

Also, in order for Crystal to register in VS, I believe you have to install the version that comes with VS and then install Crystal to update VS.

-Dell

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Hello Dell. Really appreciate you jumping in - on this thread and the previous one. It is so cool to see community participation.

You are correct in stating that "You can't install just the runtime - you have to have the full version of Crystal." - never occured to me to consider that htis may be the case here. (well, you can, but in that case licensing comes into play and technical difficulties may come up too), so in a word, as you said; "no".

Re.; "Also, in order for Crystal to register in VS, I believe you have to install the version that comes with VS and then install Crystal to update VS."

I'm quite sure you do not have to do that. You should be able to just install CR irrespective of the bundle being installed or not. But I have not tried this, so I'm willing to get my fingers rapped for saying this :).

Happy coding,

Ludek

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

The biggest problem to me is that there is no document or atleast I have not found one as to what should go first and what should go next in installing Crystal Reports. There is Crystal Reports Developer software, crystal runtime distributable, crystal .NET runtime etc etc. Is there an order of installation of all this? Is there a document which describes which is necessary and which is sufficient to do what etc???

Anyways, I am just frustated with Crystal in general, my personal opinion and please take no offense.

Anyways, I manually added the references in my project by right clicking on the project, go to properties and in the properties page, go to references, and then add reference and manually browse to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Business Objects\Common\3.5\managed\dotnet2 and it worked for me, so it works for everybody else. The only problem I see is that you want to make sure that the dll are not copied locally when you deploy that way they use the ones in the GAC.

PS: I apologize for expressing my frustation, but my experience from sales to development has not been very impressive.

[former_member184995 · Accepted solution]

I believe you confusion is coming from not understanding how the product works instead of an issue with the product itself.

Your combining Crystal Reports Developer software, crystal runtime distributable, crystal .NET runtime all into one sentence and talking about installation order leads me to believe this is the case.

On your development machine you would have VS.NET installed, it comes with the free version of Crystal included (along with its .NET runtimes). If you want to integrate the stand alone version (say Crystal 2008) and use its .NET runtimes in your app you need to install it after VS is installed to allow it to integrate. VS.NET can't integrate to a product that is already installed as it would never look.

The crystal runtime distributable should never be installed on your development machine. You use the distributable to deploy the Crystal runtimes onto a server where you want to deploy your app. You just need to make sure you are using the runtimes that match the ones you are using in your app.

I hope that clears up some of the confusion.

Jason

[Former Member]

No response after 2 months. Closing.