Can I use Parallel Crystal with Windows 2000?

Download PDF version of this faq: Windows2000_PCRE.pdf

Issue

When considering a migration to Windows 2000 please also consider the following information.

Parallel Crystal is a CORBA framework around Seagate Crystal Reports. It enables advanced Java or COM developers to integrate Crystal Reports with leading web/portal servers, generate high fidelity PDF documents, and achieve high scalability.

Here is correspondence between the Dynalivery releases, the Seagate/Crystal Decisions releases, and the embedded ORB we use, along with our own software to integrate them:

Parallel Crystal 2.3 (Nov. 1999) - Crystal Reports 7.0.1.100 - Borland Visibroker 3.3
Parallel Crystal 2.4 (May 2000) - Crystal Reports 7.0.1.100 - Borland Visibroker 3.3/3.4
Parallel Crystal 2.5 (June 2001) - Crystal Reports 7.0.1.100 - Borland Visibroker 4.1
Parallel Crystal 2.6 (Oct. 2001) - Crystal Reports 7.0.1.100 - TAO (Washington Univ.)
Parallel Crystal 2.7 (August 2002) - Crystal Reports 7.0.1.100 - TAO (Washington Univ.)
Parallel Crystal 3.6 (July 2002) - Crystal Reports 8.5 - TAO (Washington Univ.)
Parallel Crystal 3.7.1 (May 2003) - Crystal Reports 9 - TAO (Washington Univ.)

Please note that Seagate/Crystal Decisions certifies Crystal Reports 7.x for Windows NT and certifies Crystal Reports v8.5 and v9 for Windows NT and Windows 2000. In fact, Dynalivery has reproduced certain errors that infrequently appear in Crystal Reports 7.x when it is run on Windows 2000. One example of a Crystal Report 7 failure on Windows 2000 would be a report template with an embedded OLE image produced in Microsoft PowerPoint that includes a gradient, admittedly a rare case in business applications.

Note: Dynalivery plans to support Crystal Reports v7, v8.5 and v9 for the foreseeable future.

What is the safe choice?

While Dynalivery has a number of customers running Parallel Crystal versions 2.4 - 2.6 in production on Windows 2000, we strongly urge customers to use Windows NT 4, service pack 5 or 6a with Parallel Crystal for the present time. In the event of a production emergency on Windows 2000, we would advise you that your application is technically running on an unsupported operating system. Feel free to use either Microsoft operating system with Parallel Crystal 3.x.