On occasion I have worked with customers where the field explorer has become undocked and we have trouble getting it to dock again.  I also remember clicking toolbar buttons and accidentally dragging the toolbar out of position, then not being sure how to get things back the way they were.  So I was pleased to find a feature (tucked inside a little-used menu item) that will fix these issues.  It is currently available in versions 11 through 14 and I assume that it will be available in later versions as well.

To use this feature go into the VIEW menu and select TOOLBARS.  You will see a window that allows you to control which toolbars are visible. At the bottom is an option called “Reset all toolbars and explorers on the next restart”.  Check this option and then close and re-open Crystal Reports.  All your toolbars will go back to their default positions and your field explorer (and other explorers) will re-dock in their original positions.

Now I would have been even happier if this also reset the entire Formula Workshop.   I have written before about the formula workshop disappearing, or the panels not docking correctly.  Unfortunately these features are not currently reset by this option.  So if  you have these problems in the formula workshop you will still have to dig into the registry to fix them.