Modifying Crystal Reports v1.0.38 Forms

Question

You read that correctly, CR v1.0.38. We have an archaic piece of coldfusion software that uses reports created in CR v1.0.38. Some of these reports need minor adjustments, so I open it using Visual Studio make the adjustments. When I go to save it I'm prompted with a warning about only being able to save it as a newer version. When I attempt to pull the report using the saved .rpt file it locks up.

Do any of you CR gurus know how I could edit and save a CR report into CR v1.0.38 format? The only Crystal Reports editing software I currently have is Visual Studio 2005.

Answer 1

You could try using a text editor such as TextPad or NotePad++ to try and edit the .rpt file. It's possible that such an early version of Crystal will have a fairly simplistic model that may be succesfully modified "in the raw." Especially if the changes you need to make are indeed simple. I don't expect any Crystal editor written since '95 to be able to read a 1.* rpt file.

I have actually done something similar in version 5 of Crystal to address a persistence bug. (Crystal 5 threw in an extra squiggly brace on save sometimes into rpt file... )

EDIT: Found a page of links to Crystal Utils that may help you. Perhaps better options than text editing the raw rpt!

Answer 2

Wow, old enough that it was actually called Quik Reports. Oldest thing I know for editing Crystal Reports would be the version that comes with VB5 (or VB6 - same version) which was version 4.6 - there's a chance this might be old enough. If you can get an even older version, apparently Crystal has been bundled with VB since 1993, which would mean VB3.