I've heard of "Crystal Reports" for years, but I'm really confused why a small ActiveX type of component that just displays and prints out data from databases (does it?) should be considered a whole product within the VS suite of products.
Is it something better, like something for Windows Server that lets you generate report server-side as PDFs or similar which is why its considered so important?
Enlighten me.
It's a whole product because it is supplied as such by the developer, and is installed only optionally. It enables support for Crystal Report files.
And no, it's not a small ActiveX type of component. It comes with a full-fledged report designer and runtime component and is a complete report solution, much like SSRS (SQL Server Report Services, or something - is that what you meant with the thing for Windows Server?). Have look at their web page for more information.
Its a reporting tool that has a stand alone application for generating reports or reports can be integrated into a .net application.
The Crystal Reports that come with Visual Studio are a 'lite' version of the suite of products , see this page for comparison of features between the full and lite versions of 2008
Crystal Reports is a very robust (and in many developers' opinions, complicated and painful) tool to build complex reports. It's much more than simply printing what's in the database - taking relational data and transforming it into massive corporate reports with hundreds or thousands of conditions is very time-consuming and difficult. For example, what if the report needs to have product summary sections which can be formatted completely differently based on the qualities or attributes of the product? CR has a scripting model that permits pretty much any transformation imaginable.
To replace Crystal Reports with something you seem to be imagining, would require a data transformation engine; an end-user-friendly UI to write transformation rules and design reports; and a presentation engine to format the reports in a print-friendly way. That definitely sounds like a full-fledged product to me.
One of the cool things they added was support for binding to .NET and other data providers. This company has been bought by so many companies in the past it has really hurt the product IMO.
Crystal Report is a third part "Reprot Creation" tool.
This comes as build-in with Visual Studio IDE, and using this tool you can create reports in your application.
You should try Stimulsoft Reports.Net its better than CR.NET.In this solution there are no ActiveX involved and no merge module and runtimes....
The worst thing about CR is that there isn't anything better at what it does.
If what you want to do is what it "likes" to do--dump data from the DB into a formatted page--it's dead simple. If you're willing to tolerate pain & frustration, you can make it do all sorts of fancy things.
It's definitely more than just "an ActiveX control".