.NET environment

In order to use .NET assemblies, you must set up your development machine and web server to be able to run a reporting application using .NET.

To create .NET applications to view or modify Enterprise reports, or to use the Crystal Reports .NET report viewers to view a SOAP report web service, you need to install Visual Studio .NET, Crystal Reports, Crystal Enterprise, and Report Application Server. Crystal Reports enhances VS .NET by adding Crystal Reports features to the Visual Studio .NET IDE. Therefore, you must install your .NET products before you install Crystal Reports, or you must run the Crystal Reports installation program again after you install a .NET product.

In general, follow this installation order for setting up your development machine:

• Ensure Internet Information Server (IIS) 5 or higher is installed if you intend to host web applications on your development machine.

  Note:    If you are installing on Windows NT 4, you will not be able to create web applications on your machine's IIS web server; you will need to point to a Windows 2000 Server or Windows .NET Server machine when creating web applications in Visual Studio .NET. See the Visual Studio .NET documentation for more details.

• Install Visual Studio .NET or the .NET Framework.
• Install any optional .NET tools such as Visual J# or the .NET mobile controls.
• Install Crystal Reports.
• Install Crystal Enterprise.

  Note:    The Crystal Enterprise .NET assemblies and the .NET Server Components will be installed on your machine if:

  • You perform a default installation of Crystal Enterprise on a machine that has Visual Studio .NET or the .NET Framework installed.
  • You perform a Custom installation on a machine that has Visual Studio .NET or the .NET Framework installed, and select "Crystal Enterprise .NET SDK" from the Developer Components listed in the Select Features dialog.

    If you install Crystal Enterprise before installing a .NET product, you must install one and then run the Setup program again.

For a web server to run a reporting application using Crystal Enterprise for .NET, the web server must be running the .NET Framework and provide access to the Crystal Enterprise .NET libraries.