Crystal Reports not included in Visual Studio 2010 – What are the consequences for the introduction of the new VS version?

Question

Yesterday I stumbled over the information that Crystal Reports will no longer be included in Visual Studio 2010. Instead – it will be provided as a free download, but with a separate installation and a separate release date. According to the linked information the release of CR will be later than that of VS. My projects depend in parts on CR and I want to shift early to VS 2010. So there are some related questions:

Can I use VS 2010 with the older 2008 version of CR? Do I need a workstation with a preinstalled VS 2008 or is the installation of the CR redistribution package sufficient to run that? Are there any experiences with the VS Beta concerning that?

Things turn worse on this theme - an Update

• The release date of CR 2010 is a moving target. The actual target is November 2010.
• Websites already migrated to VS 2010 have no designer support for CR 2008. You can compile. But you can’t edit.
• CR 2010 is no longer free for web applications
• Others discussing this theme.

Answer 1

Can I use VS 2010 with the older 2008 version of CR?

Why not it you have the correct dlls then I'm sure your code should compile anyway.Only thing is that the new CR will have new version dlls and then you may have to update your code and reports etc.

Do I need a workstation with a preinstalled VS 2008 or is the installation of the CR redistribution package sufficient to run that?

Based on your requirments

Answer 2

It seems like simply the method of distribution has changed. So there are two things to consider, one how far out of cycle will the CR release be for 2010 vs. VS 2010? Second, that you'll have to go and download it separately which can be a bit of a logistics headache when upgrading a team.

The remaining questions seem like they would be applicable regardless of version. Are you able to use VS2005 CR DLLs with VS2008? If so, I would imagine the same would hold true for 2010.