How do I Include Crystal Reports Assembly (crystaldecisions.reportappserver.commonobjectmodel Ver 13.0.2000.0) into Windows Installer?

Question

I have built a project using VS 2010 and I have 2 reports I am creating within the project. While in VS2010, I can debug the program and the reports work perfectly.

Now I have come to the point where I want to publish my project and install it on a machine that my program will be used on. I tried 'Publishing' my project and running the 'Setup' file on the other computer and I get the following error:

Unable to install or run the application. The application requires that assembly CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.CommonObjectModel Version 13.0.2000.0 be installed in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) first. Please Contact your System Administrator.

Doing some research, I have found out that you can manually change the GAC or have Windows Installer fix it for you. To be honest, I don't know where the GAC is or how to modify it. My ideal solution would be to figure out how to setup Windows Installer to fix the GAC and configure Crystal reports however to get my project to run on a basic machine.

Can someone help me setup Windows Installer to install the appropriate Crystal Reports Engine so my project will work??

I am new to Windows Installer, so overkill on details won't bother me a bit!! Thanks so much in advance!!

Solution

You can try adding a Crystal Reports runtime installer as a prerequisite to your main package. You need the one with version 13.0.2000.0.

You can read more about prerequisites here:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/77z6b8tz(VS.80).aspx?ppud=4
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165429(VS.80).aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165429.aspx

Comments

[EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine]

Why is “Can someone help me?” not an actual question?

[Emanuele Greco]

no, this won't work: you need a runtime (external application) working on the server

[Rod]

Emanuele, I realize that this is a few years after you wrote what you did, but I've got a follow up question. If the .rpt files are local to the application, why would you need to have the runtime running on a server?

[matao]

this won't work as Crystal Reports has COM components that require being installed by an Administrator. You cannot deploy Crystal Reports via click-once, it has to be installed as a pre-requisite by the user or their administrator.