Finding the Crystal Reports version?

Question

Assuming CR XI R2, but if someone upgrades Crystal on the PC.... I have even seen instances where apps have actually downgraded Crystal.. Is there a call to find the version of Crystal Installed?

Answer 1

Hi Anders.
As I see it, you've touched on two issues here;
1) The actual rpt version (e.g. version of CR the report was created in) which we can retrived by using the method as described in the KB [1349972  - How to determine the version of Crystal Reports used to create a report?|http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/com.sap.km.cm.docs/oss_notes_boj/sdn_oss_boj_bi/sap(bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==)/bc/bsp/spn/scn_bosap/notes%7B6163636573733d36393736354636443646363436353344333933393338323636393736354637333631373036453646373436353733354636453735364436323635373233443330333033303331333333343339333933373332%7D.do]. It is never a good idea to run newer versions of a report file with older runtime as the new report may use features that the older runtime will not understand.
2) The version of the CR runtime. And that is the difficult one becasuse we could have anything from CR 8.5 and lower to CRVS2010 on that same box. Irrespective of how the runtime got installed (via install of the designer or install of the runtime),  as I have seen CR work, if I reference CR for .NET assemblies of version 13.x, the app will want to load only version 13 runtime. If that runtime does not exist, the app will not work. Installing older runtime will not affect existing CR 13 runtime, even if directed to "always overwrite". E.g. version 12 runtime will not remove vesion 13 runtime no matter what the installer says. Only way I see anything similar to what you are describing is if there is something like version 12 SP4 runtime and someone comes along with version 12 SP0 runtime and "always overwrite" command in his install. So it would be an SP specific issue - not an actual version issue(?).
- Ludek