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I've used Crystal Reports for years and whilst it's been a love-hate
relationship, it does it job. But I think it's become rather bloated over
time and I have one big issue with it - the installation on a web server
requires installation of a huge MSI which puts stuff all over the web
server, not just in the web folder.

This is fine (well fine-ish) if you host your own server but I'm developing
an application at the moment which we'd like to move to a hosted ISP.

Am I going to have trouble with using Crystal Reports XI in this
environment?

Are there alternative, lighter ASP.NET friendly reporting tools?

Thanks, Rob.

I have not used it, but
http://www.telerik.com/products/reporting/overview.aspx looks good.

I am expereince with Teleriks other products, and if the reporting is half
as good as everything else they do then I can guarentee that it will be
infinitely better than Crystal (which I am experienced with - and hate with
a passion)

HTH

Regards
Dave A

"Rob" <rob_nicholson@nospam_unforgettable.com> wrote in message
news:nMZ2j.50030$...
> I've used Crystal Reports for years and whilst it's been a love-hate
> relationship, it does it job. But I think it's become rather bloated over
> time and I have one big issue with it - the installation on a web server
> requires installation of a huge MSI which puts stuff all over the web
> server, not just in the web folder.
>
> This is fine (well fine-ish) if you host your own server but I'm
> developing an application at the moment which we'd like to move to a
> hosted ISP.
>
> Am I going to have trouble with using Crystal Reports XI in this
> environment?
>
> Are there alternative, lighter ASP.NET friendly reporting tools?
>
> Thanks, Rob.
>

I would evaluate the pros and cons of migrating to SSRS (SQL Server Reporting
Services).

The good stuff is that you have your reporting capabilities in a different
server and you can integrate it in your web app in a lot of ways, no need for
strange activex controls or whatever, just query string, post, or even
webservices.

Bad news are... you are moving to a hosting company... How can you ask them
to install SSRS? well some hosting companies (e.g. Discount ASP .net)
offers you SSRS hosting so you would have that issue solved.

And...this is just for excel export, I had made a comparison between
available technologies, hope it helps:

http://www.tipsdotnet.com/TechBlog.a...Index=0&BLID=2

Good luck
Braulio

/// ------------------------------
/// Braulio Diez
///
/// http://www.tipsdotnet.com
/// ------------------------------




"Rob" wrote:

> I've used Crystal Reports for years and whilst it's been a love-hate
> relationship, it does it job. But I think it's become rather bloated over
> time and I have one big issue with it - the installation on a web server
> requires installation of a huge MSI which puts stuff all over the web
> server, not just in the web folder.
>
> This is fine (well fine-ish) if you host your own server but I'm developing
> an application at the moment which we'd like to move to a hosted ISP.
>
> Am I going to have trouble with using Crystal Reports XI in this
> environment?
>
> Are there alternative, lighter ASP.NET friendly reporting tools?
>
> Thanks, Rob.
>
>
>