Deployment Overview
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 9.0 Beta 1 ships with deployment projects that enable you to deploy your application to target machines.
Each setup project contains an application and its necessary components. Deployment components include report files, Crystal Reports redistribution files and the .NET Framework 2.0 redistribution package.
You can also install Crystal Reports runtime files on the target machine. To provide Crystal Reports runtime files, your setup projects must include the Crystal Reports for .NET Framework 2.0 Redistribution Package or Crystal Reports merge modules. Crystal Reports merge modules are available for 32 and 64-bit machines. The 64-bit merge modules only work in Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 9.0 Beta 1. Download the merge modules from https://technicalsupport.businessobjects.com/.
Deployment in Visual Studio 9.0 Beta 1 is based on Windows Installer technology. The setup project builds installer files with .exe and .msi extensions. Those files can be distributed for installation on computers that do not have Crystal Reports or Visual Studio 9.0 Beta 1 installed. It is recommended to distribute project files using the .msi Windows Installer technology.
In addition to merge modules deployment, Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 9.0 Beta 1 simplifies Windows application deployment through the use of ClickOnce deployment. With ClickOnce, Windows applications are deployed to Web Sites, where target computers access the installation files and receive application updates. See ClickOnce Deployment for more information.
To deploy an application, start with a project and add the following components:
| Project Output | Selected files from the project necessary to deploy the application to client machines. |
| Report Files | Non-embedded reports to be distributed to client machines. |
| .NET Framework 2.0 | .NET components that are necessary for an application to run. |
| Crystal Reports for .NET Framework 2.0 Windows Installer | Installer technology that sets up Crystal Reports runtime files on target machines without the need to separately add selected merge modules to the project output. |
| Merge Modules | Components that enable clients to view applications that use Crystal Reports. |