All Customers Using PCRE v3.6+: must obtain a copy of Crystal Reports 8.5 Developer Edition

Download PDF version of this faq: PrereqSW__3_6.pdf
FAQ# 36-07010201

All customers using Parallel Crystal 3.6+ need to obtain a copy of Crystal Reports 8.5.0.217 and install it on their report server machine before attempting to install Dynalivery's software. See the following steps:

1. Clean Machine
Ideally customers should start with a clean machine, i.e. reinstalling Microsoft Windows NT 4, service pack 5 or 6 or Windows 2000 and having no other software on the machine. If any other version of Crystal Reports has ever been on this machine, then the clean machine build is especially important as the Crystal Reports uninstall utility is not 100% effective and may leave residual DLLs or registry entries.

For more information on this topic see the article titled: “DLL HELL: The inside story” By Franky Wong - Vice President, Desaware, Inc.

2. Buy Crystal Reports 8.5 Developer Edition
Crystal Reports 8.5 is available from the Crystal Decisions Online store and many other worldwide sources. Note that the Standard and Professional Editions of Crystal Reports 8.5 DO NOT include the full set of the required CRPE32.DLL and associated run-time libraries that Parallel Crystal 3.x requires.

3. Install and validation of Crystal Reports 8.5 Developer Edition
After installing Crystal Reports 8.5, validate that you have the right version by running the CRVersion.exe utility. Launch it by double clicking on its icon and take note of the version numbers. It should show the presence of only "Version 8.5 (2128)".(see diagram below)

Also compare the bitmap image on the next page to the "about box" acknowledgements found under the “Help” menu in the Crystal Reports Designer.

4. Ready for Parallel Crystal 3.6 framework/middleware
Go ahead and run the Parallel Crystal installation utility.

5. Data Object Reporting (DOR)
Dynalivery recommends that its customers use Data Object Reporting (DOR) to supply data to reports at run-time from the cache in live Java or COM objects. To the extent that customers do not accept this recommendation and use SQL database drivers from the report engine, they may need to use different drivers than Seagate provides in the Crystal Reports 8.5 box from Merant or other suppliers of database drivers.