Will publishing an ASP.NET WebForms app remove Crysttal Reports from the web server?

Question

Will publishing an ASP.NET WebForms app remove Crysttal Reports from the web server?

Rod Falanga 1,056

I maintain a legacy Intranet ASP.NET WebForms app written years ago using VB.NET. When the original developers wrote it, they used Crystal Reports 13.0.2 (I think, I'm going on memory and I'm home, so I cannot verify this, but I'm sure it is very close.) This WebForms app is simple, as far as the number of pages go. It's only 12 pages, which includes the pages to render the Crystal Reports. Nevertheless, the Visual Studio solution has 9 projects in it, with each project using a different version of .NET Framework. Everything from version 2 to 4.5.2.

Anyway, SAP, which currently owns Crystal Reports, no longer supports Crystal 13.0.2. Normally, I don't have to do any editing of the application, as all requests by the users have been something I can handle in the SQL Server tables. However, they now want a change that will require modifying the application. (The original developers hard-coded a lot of values in those 9 projects.)

My PC did have an installation of Crystal 13.0.2 on it, until the Christmas/New Years holiday, when the desktop support team decided to reimage my desktop. I don't think I can install that old version of Crystal anymore.

My concern is once I make the modifications to the code, then publish it to an internal web server, will the act of publishing the app wipe out Crystal 13.0.2 on the server?

Anonymous

2025-01-16T08:36:34.2233333+00:00

Hi @Rod Falanga,

My concern is once I make the modifications to the code, then publish it to an internal web server, will the act of publishing the app wipe out Crystal 13.0.2 on the server?

As far as I know, publishing the application does not affect what is already in the server, I think what you need to consider is whether the application is compatible with the existing Crystal 13.0.2.
Falanga, Rod, DOH 1,150 Reputation points

2025-01-16T14:54:19+00:00

Good morning, @Anonymous I'm replying from my work email account.

At this point I don't intend to change what version of the .NET Framework any of the projects run under. So, what you've said encourages me that I can proceed with publishing the web application.
Albert Kallal 5,591 Reputation points

2025-01-17T03:11:35.3966667+00:00

Hum, I'm of the view that if you don' t have the .dll's and those reports working, then a full publish to the site is likely to break. I would not put one's self in that use case (in which you are developing an application, and bits and parts are missing on the developer machine). So, I would not be all that comfortable doing this. Worse yet, over time, you may well need to update or migrate the server - and then again, you be scrambling to setup + install those reports. Depending on how complex the reports are, then you could add the webforms reporting tools, and they are RDL (Report Definition Language). This setup does not require SQL server reporting services. As such, then you would have a "full" working developer build that can be published to test servers, dev servers etc. So, no, I don't think publishing a "non" working application to the web server in the hope that some parts are "correctly wired up" at publish time is a risk here. Now, to be fair, I never attempted doing this, and I would avoid doing as such if at all possible. Also, some of this will depend on what type of project. Since you note/suggest/hint that multiple projects are in "one project", then that STRONG suggests this is a "asp.net web site application". As such, they are designed to delete/remove the bin folder before a publish, and thus any dependent .dlls' better exist in that project, so a correct build can occur, and MORE important, that a correct publish can occur. Web site "applications" are far more strict in terms of publishing - and dependences are resolved and placed in the bin folder during this publish process. If you build is missing bits and parts, then you have a good chance the final publish will break. In fact, test this now. Do a publish to a local folder - does the publish work? (it will probably complain that parts are missing as the project stands now).
Falanga, Rod, DOH 1,150 Reputation points

2025-01-17T17:51:44.3+00:00

Yesterday, as a proof of concept, I published to the test website a small change, then tested printing some Crystal Reports. It worked fine. This is a good test because both the test and production websites are on the same web server. (I don't know why the original developers did this, but they did.)

For the new application, I intend to follow a suggestion by SAP. They said that I could write the new application using .NET, but don't include the reports. Instead write another website that references just the reports, as is, and use .NET Framework 4.8. Then when a user of the new .NET site wants to print a report, that web application will call out to the new .NET Framework to print the report.

Answer accepted by question author

Jack Dang (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 18,975 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi,

Thanks for reaching out.

When you publish an ASP.NET WebForms application, the deployment process does not uninstall or modify any software installed on the web server, including the Crystal Reports runtime. Publishing typically updates the application’s files (like DLLs, ASPX pages, and the web.config) but does not touch installed components like Crystal Reports 13.0.2, which is a separate system-level installation.

That said, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Check the version of Crystal Reports currently installed on the server. You can find this in Programs and Features on Windows.

If you reinstall a newer version of Crystal Reports Developer Edition on your dev machine, avoid referencing a newer runtime DLL unless you're also ready to upgrade the runtime on the server. Version mismatches can cause runtime errors.

Before publishing, make a backup of the server’s application folder and configuration files, just in case any settings or bindings get overwritten.

If you’re forced to use a newer Crystal version for development, you’ll likely need to update the server’s Crystal runtime to match.

In short: Publishing your updated app won’t remove Crystal Reports from the server, but it’s important to ensure version compatibility between your development environment and the production runtime.

Hope this helps!

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Your answer

Anonymous

2025-01-16T08:36:34.2233333+00:00

Hi @Rod Falanga,

My concern is once I make the modifications to the code, then publish it to an internal web server, will the act of publishing the app wipe out Crystal 13.0.2 on the server?

As far as I know, publishing the application does not affect what is already in the server, I think what you need to consider is whether the application is compatible with the existing Crystal 13.0.2.
Falanga, Rod, DOH 1,150 Reputation points

2025-01-16T14:54:19+00:00

Good morning, @Anonymous I'm replying from my work email account.

At this point I don't intend to change what version of the .NET Framework any of the projects run under. So, what you've said encourages me that I can proceed with publishing the web application.
Albert Kallal 5,591 Reputation points

2025-01-17T03:11:35.3966667+00:00

Hum, I'm of the view that if you don' t have the .dll's and those reports working, then a full publish to the site is likely to break. I would not put one's self in that use case (in which you are developing an application, and bits and parts are missing on the developer machine). So, I would not be all that comfortable doing this. Worse yet, over time, you may well need to update or migrate the server - and then again, you be scrambling to setup + install those reports. Depending on how complex the reports are, then you could add the webforms reporting tools, and they are RDL (Report Definition Language). This setup does not require SQL server reporting services. As such, then you would have a "full" working developer build that can be published to test servers, dev servers etc. So, no, I don't think publishing a "non" working application to the web server in the hope that some parts are "correctly wired up" at publish time is a risk here. Now, to be fair, I never attempted doing this, and I would avoid doing as such if at all possible. Also, some of this will depend on what type of project. Since you note/suggest/hint that multiple projects are in "one project", then that STRONG suggests this is a "asp.net web site application". As such, they are designed to delete/remove the bin folder before a publish, and thus any dependent .dlls' better exist in that project, so a correct build can occur, and MORE important, that a correct publish can occur. Web site "applications" are far more strict in terms of publishing - and dependences are resolved and placed in the bin folder during this publish process. If you build is missing bits and parts, then you have a good chance the final publish will break. In fact, test this now. Do a publish to a local folder - does the publish work? (it will probably complain that parts are missing as the project stands now).
Falanga, Rod, DOH 1,150 Reputation points

2025-01-17T17:51:44.3+00:00

Yesterday, as a proof of concept, I published to the test website a small change, then tested printing some Crystal Reports. It worked fine. This is a good test because both the test and production websites are on the same web server. (I don't know why the original developers did this, but they did.)

For the new application, I intend to follow a suggestion by SAP. They said that I could write the new application using .NET, but don't include the reports. Instead write another website that references just the reports, as is, and use .NET Framework 4.8. Then when a user of the new .NET site wants to print a report, that web application will call out to the new .NET Framework to print the report.

Answer 1

Michael Taylor 61,231

Publishing a web app doesn't install new or remove existing software from the server. In general it will simply replace the deployment directory and update the IIS configuration.

In many cases the functionality you need is contained in the NuGet package you reference. However more complex libraries, like Crystal Reports, tend to require software to also be installed. This is generally documented by the package. During development you generally have instructions to install some software on your machine. This same step has to occur on the server as well. Publishing cannot do this. Thus if you are not updating your dependencies then publishing shouldn't have any issues. However if you update your packages and they document that they require newer versions of the third party code then you'll need to manually update your server before publishing.

Falanga, Rod, DOH 1,150 Reputation points

2025-01-16T21:52:21.96+00:00

In this case I am not updating any NuGet packages, nor Crystal Reports. The only changes are to a couple of lookup tables in the database and one VB.NET file.
Michael Taylor 61,231 Reputation points

2025-01-17T01:07:56.98+00:00

If you didn't make any changes to your dependencies then publishing shouldn't change anything either. It'll just update the binaries on your site.