One of the most popular pages on my site is the LINKS page where I have a comprehensive list of third party utilities that are available for Crystal Reports. These include Viewers and Schedulers as well as tools that do Email, Bursting and host of other useful services. You can also request a short review of my favorite utilities and the tasks for which they are best suited.

This past week I ran into some issues I started using my Vista laptop. Not all of the utilities are are fully compatible with Vista. Some just need to have their compatibility settings adjusted to be run in XP mode. Some need to be run as Administrator. Some do not run at all. For example, currently PDF eXPLODE does not work on Vista (but they are working on it).

If you run into any compatibility issues with Vista and Crystal or a Crystal utility, I would love to hear about it.

Business Objects has a new version of Crystal Reports ready for release called Crystal Reports 2008. They are planning on announcing it at the Insight Americas conference in mid – October. So far there is no public mention of this product that I can find except for one page that I am sure is only public by accident. But, that probably explains why they are allowing upgrades to XI for $99 through the end of September. They also recently began selling full developer copies of XI for only $395 till 9/28.

I do know that the partners are aware of this and probably have copies but otherwise there are no public descriptions of the changes or new features. If anyone has any information to add, please let me know.

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Update: Tonight I found the main 3 new features of Crystal Reports 2008:

1. On-Report Filtering (interactive filters for pulling subsets of data without a refresh)
2. On-Report Sorting (single click to change the sort field and order without a refresh)
3. Xcelsius content embedded in reports

There are probably many smaller changes and additions but these are the three that BO seems to be highlighting.

Here is a question that came up today and I was surprised to find that I didn’t have this info anywhere on my site. Crystal Reports is licensed under a “Named User” license. This means that if you have 5 people creating reports, then you need to have 5 copies or licenses for Crystal Reports. This doesn’t mean 5 simultaneous users, it means 5 specific individuals and no sharing. Now this isn’t mechanically enforced Continue Reading »
Understanding “Named User” Licensing for Crystal Reports