Create a Crystal Reports Deployment Package
Crystal Reports is not part of the .NET Framework. It is a tool added to the Visual Studio IDE. Consequently, an application that uses Crystal Reports can’t be copied to a computer that has the .NET Framework installed. You have to manually add the Crystal Reports components to the deployment package for the application to run. Fortunately, this is a simple process because there are merge modules that have all these components included in them. Just add the appropriate merge modules to your deployment package. The merge modules are listed in Table 19-10.
Table 19-10. Crystal Reports Merge Modules.
| Merge Module | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Crystal_RegWiz2003.msm | Holds the license key that registers Crystal Reports on the target computer. If you forget to set the license key property, then your reports won’t run on the target computer. |
| Crystal_Managed2003.msm | Installs the primary components for running reports. It has the CrystalDecisions.* namespaces. |
| Crystal_Database_Access2003.msm | Installs database drivers for connecting reports to various data sources, components for exporting reports, and non-managed runtime components. |
| Crystal_Database_Access2003_enu.msm | Installs language specific components. |
| VC_User_CRT71_RTL_X86_—.msm | This merge module includes components for handling ADO.NET data sources. If you don’t use ADO.NET in your reports (you only use ODBC or OLE DB), then you do not need to include this merge module. |
| VC_User_STL71_RTL_X86_-s–.msm | This merge module also includes components for handling ADO.NET data sources. If you don’t use ADO.NET in your reports (i.e. you use ODBC or OLE DB), then you do not need to include this merge module. |
Including these merge modules in the deployment package is very simple. Right-click on the project name and select Add | Merge Module. Select the ones you want to add (which is all of them with the exception of the VC_ modules which are only necessary if use ADO.NET data sources). To see how easy this is, the next examples walk you through creating a deployment package for a Windows application and a Web application.
