Problem installing ActiveX viewer in Windows 7

Question

Hello,
We downloaded the public beta of Windows 7 today and I am getting an error in our web application when it tries to install the Crystal Reports XI ActiveX report viewer (version 11.0.0.1424 of crviewer.dll).  IE8 will issue its normal prompt to ask you if you want to install the control, but after that, the little object image in the upper-left corner of the page turns to a red X.
I tried using the sample code which comes with Crystal XI (SimplePreviewReport.asp in the "BeginHere" folder) and that had the same problem.  I put some debug code into SmartViewerActiveX.asp and found that I was getting an "ActiveX component can't create object" error on this line:
     Set webBroker = CreateObject("CrystalReports11.WebReportBroker.1")
I don't think it's a security issue because I am an administrator on the machine and I didn't have any problems installing other ActiveX controls.  I tried running the web site in both the Local Intranet zone as well as the Trusted Sites zone.  I'm also thinking that the issue is more with Windows 7 than IE8 because I have IE8 Beta 2 installed on a Windows XP machine and the Crystal ActiveX viewer installs just fine there.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Answer 1

XI R2 is more then an incremental update in some aspects to XI R1. They are officially versioned 11 and 11.5 and XI R2 is considered a new release. However in most aspects to a Crystal R1 customer XI R2 doesn't offer much more in functionality other than it is more up-to-date and is still receiving updates and patches.
With out looking at Operating Systems or other factors I generally recommend R1 customers move to R2 so they are kept up-to-date. However being an new version that does mean you will need to update your projects to call the R2 runtime, and then you can use the R2 merge modules.
As for how R2 merge modules work with Windows 7 I cannot say. We will have to wait until Windows 7 final build comes out before we will get a list of supported products on this Operating System, and this can take upwards of 3 months after the OS is released. I would hazard a guess (NOTE: GUESS is the important word here) that R1 and R2 will not be certified with Windows 7. This does not mean it will not work, but does mean it will not be tested and if errors are found that are particular to this OS they will not be fixed.
Remember that this is just a guess, based on R2 being 3 years old and nearing end of its patch cycle and Windows 7 being at least 4 months away. However this cannot be concidered an official statement it is just my personal opinion. Enough caveats there?
Trevor