Non-developer, hoping for help

[Former Member]

Hey all,

First off, I'm not a developer.. I inherited an application on our network, original developer is no longer here either. So hoping you guys can give me some pointers.He used Visual FoxPro 6 and 8 to create some programs that run off of the network via an .exe file. it appears that these programs might be dependent on Crystal Reports (v7 and v10) being installed on the users workstations as well, but I'm trying to avoid having to do this.

When I try to launch one of his applications, it prompts me for the locatin of an .ocx file, I don't know which one. If I hit cancel, I'm prompted with "OLE error code 0x80040152. Class not registered. OLE object is being ignored. Record number 137."

If I install the full version of CR7, I do NOT get prompted for the ocx file or get the OLE error.. the program proceeds as normal...until I hit an "export to excel" button in the program..

then i get "OLE IDispatch exception code 0 from Crystal Reports ActiveX Designer: invalid TLV record.." "(1429)"

If I then install Cr10... i no longer get that error.

So as you can see, quite a mess on my hands. I DO have access to the source files for Fox Pro and can create a new build, if needed.

Are there any sort of runtime setups that I can install instead of what seems to be full versions?

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Hi Joe

There is soooooo much wrong here... I hope your job does not depend on resolving this

1) CR 7 was retired about 20 years ago

2) The OCX was retired in with CR 8.5 about 15 years ago

3) CR 10 (given (2) above, did not install the OCX

4) There were no install runtime files (e.g.; msm / msi) in those days. You had to go through the help files and create your own install when using VF (using VB you could use the "install and packaging wizard" that would to the install project for you).

5) CR 7 does not support any of the current Operating Systems

6) CR 7 does not support any of the current databases

I think I could keep going but you probably get the idea that this is going to be an uphill battle. Now, for a bit of help. If you do not have the install project that the original developer may have created, then your only option is to actually install CR 7 on every computer you want the app to work on. However, in order that you are not breaking your license agreement, you will have to ensure that the  crw.exe is deleted after you do the install. E.g.; the users are not allowed to use the CR designer. You could create your own install, perhaps use batch files, but this is not a trivial task and does require a fair amount of knowledge and sluicing.

Re. the TLV error. I believe this is because you are trying to run reports created in CR 10 using CR 7 runtime and the CR 7 runtime does not understand the CR 10 report format. E.g.; the difference between CR 7 and CR 10 is much too great. And actually in CR 9 the whole report format was completely changed. No way to do a "save as version 7", etc. So, that gets us to "now what?".

Option one; the reports created in CR 10 would have to be rewritten in CR 7. The reports may work then, however keep all the points above in mind, especially points 5 and 6.

Option two; move from the stone ages (pre stone ages(?) ), to the present. This would require Visual Studio .NET 2010 / 2012 / 2013 and SAP Crystal Reports, Developer Version for Visual Studio .NET. And yes, recoding the app.

- Ludek

Senior Support Engineer AGS Product Support, Global Support Center Canada

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[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hey Ludek,

thanks for your resposne..

No my job doesn't depend on fixing this.. lol.. It *works*, its just messy and I'm only trying to simplify it. Especially messy for me, having to figure out how to deploy all of the applications. we have a mixture of Xp 32 and Win7 x64.. not many XP's left though, but these programs were definitely designed in the Xp days.

We created a CR7 "bootstrap" MSI bundle years ago.. and it still installs on Win7 x64 for whatever reason. but if I try the setup.exe on its own, it fails with unsupported OS, etc.

I *might* have the install project.. I assume I do, I just wouldn't know what it is are you talking about the Crystal Reports project or the foxpro project? I definitely have the source code for foxpro that I can tinker with, if it helps.

So, from what I gather from your response, there's no simple "runtime" install for workstations of Cr7/10 that will let CR work, without having to install the full programs (and deleting the crw.exe file)? I'd imagine that not only do DLL's need to be copied to the workstation, but likely they need to be registered too?

Thanks again for your guidance!

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

The install project would be something created in InstallSHield or Wise or something like that. Possibly even a batch file, though that would have required pretty good understanding of the CR runtime.

And yeah, you are correct. Nothing as simple as some MSI.

- Ludek