Speaking of viewers, Business Objects has just released Crystal Reports Viewer 2008. This is very similar to CR Viewer XI with 2 significant additions:

1) You can now use the interactive parameters and sort controls of CR 2008.
2) You can refresh reports – but only if the reports are already hosted in BO Enterprise or CR Server.

I haven’t tried it.  Nor have I explored the mechanics of how the limited refresh is implemented.  However, the first question that comes to mind is why you would need a viewer to view reports if the you have already deployed CR Server or BO Enterprise? Possibly it is because the viewer uses the local PC environment to render the preview of the report, which makes printing and exporting more consistent than printing from a browser.

But the second question is a tougher one. With so many really good viewers out there, why would someone use this one?  Sure, CR Viewers are free – but so are some of decent independent viewers. Even the best independent viewers are inexpensive. Even more important is that ALL of the viewers out there will refresh any report without requiring that you purchase and deploy server software.

See my LINKS page for a list of available viewers, schedulers and other useful third party products.