Which version of Visual Studio 2005 has Crystal Reports ?

Question

Hi Folks!

I want to ask that, i am willing to learn and use Visual Studio 2005 for my final year project. Please tell me which version of VS 2005 has Crystal Reports in it ?????

I downloaded the Visual Basic 2005 Express edition but it doesn't have CR. I read that VB 2005 Express can be used with SQL Server 2005 reporting services.

Does SQL Server 2005 Express edition have reporting services ? ..... and what actually is a reporting service ??..... how does it differ from CR ??

Hope somebody would answer all my questions .. !!

Thanks, Zain

Answer 1

The express edition will not have crystal reports. You will need to get a Professional or an Enterprise Edition version to be able to get crystal reports. That being said a lot of the reporting can be done using SQL reporting services. It works similar to crystal except it does not require a report engine. You create the reports in your project and you populate them with info from the database. I think they have the extension .dsr.

Answer 2

Get crystal reports for eclipse(open source ide).
connect to sql server, by ODBC with the cr for eclipse.

http://www.businessobjects.com/products/dev_zone/eclipse/default.asp