Access and Crystal Reports

If you don't have Crystal Reports, and if the reports were done with Crystal, you would not be able even to run them. So, logically, if you can see the reports and don't have Crystal, the reports you use are not made with Crystal.
Thanks Mr. La Palice

Now, my guess is that what you want to modify resides in the Access database. Try to open it while holding the shift key. The application will not start and you will see the database window. Check the 'Forms' and 'Reports' tabs.
Anything familiar here?

Maybe the shift key is disabled. Let us know: We like this kind of situation!

Be careful also: If you have a maintenance contract with the developper and you modifiy the database, the contract is broken.

ornicar out of curiosity, how would you reset the bypasskey through VB?  open the access db in a VB app that resets the bypasskey when opening the DB?

I checked the database file first, of course. There are no reports or forms in it. The tables are all there. All the reports are in a subdirectory and are *.rpt files. I can't open them in Access, Excel, or as text. I can't even guess where the screen forms are.

It is possible that the developer created the reports in Crystal and then uninstalled the main program there are several third part Report Viewers that would display them. When you try ro open one of the rpt files what exactly happens?

Any messages?

FYI...rpt is a generic report extension not tied to any one program. Crystal does use it though

Does you office have a VB studio CD. If so I believe that Crystal Reports is included on the CD. Sorry for the multiple posts. I should think before I type

I'm really just guessing about the rpt extensions. The files try to open in Excel - message is "file format is not valid." That's why I tried every other program I could think of. I don't think we have VB Studio CD but I'll check tomorrow. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Reset the bypasskey through VB? there are already several answers about this.

Open one rpt file with notepad. You may find valuable information about the app used at the beginning or at the end.
Crystal reports have the string 'Seagate Crystal Reports' somewhere. Do a search for Crystal in this file.

I opened two of the reports in Wordpad (too large for Notepad) and searched for Crystal. Found Crystal Reports Professional once in each.

He has probably used the Crystal OCX control on one or more of your forms - this will allow access to run the reports without an external viewer, but will not allow you to edit them.

As someone has already said, VB/Visual studio contained a version of Crystal Reports (but not the Professional edition), but you may need to find a specific version (though later versions will usually open reports created in earlier versions)

Hi,

Perhaps the developer split the databases, so one has just the tables (the one you have been opening) and the other has the queries, forms, etc.  How do you open it when doing "production" (i.e., see all the forms, etc.)?  Is it via a shortcut (whose properties you could check to see what is being opened)?

Just a thought.

Ken

He gave us an exe file to run the database. The database looks pretty but it's very limited and hard to enter data into. Commands for forms, reports, etc. are in the drop-down menu. We can't look at all forms.

The contractor was not called back. I've been given the job of making the database more user friendly and productive. I had hoped to save some work by using elements of his forms/reports, which is why I asked how to open them.

There could well be a second database but the files he gave us are all dll and rpt files (with one mdb and one exe). Now that I'm looking I see a lot of crp__.dll files.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how he did the database. I just wondered if I could get at some of his files. I guess not.

The exe is likely to be a VB application.  Ask him for the source code of the exe - the mdb is the backend database

This sounds like you have a Visual Basic front end application that utilizes Crystal Reports as the report generator, (the developer most likely used either Crystal Reports Print Engine "CRPE.DLL) or the Crystal Reports Active X control (either Crystl32.ocx or Crystl16.ocx). The Access Back End is merely there to house the data only.

You can locate these in the directory that you have the application (Front End) in or try looking in the Windows\System directory.

IF this is a VB app, you can not modify the actual application, however you can purchase a copy of Crystal Reports and "MODIFY" the reports, but a few words of caution:

Do not delete the reports, your VB app will not work.
If your app has a reference to the ActiveX control and you install a newer version of the control, you might run into soem serious problems, i.e., your app will not work.
You can make modifications to the reports, but be cautions about adding new controls on the reports, be careful about modifying the data "references" etc., or, yes, YOUR APP WON'T WORK!

Thanks everyone. I'm going to use his (our) data and ignore everything else. The data entry people hated the  program anyway. I need to get a bunch of graphs and reports out of these data soon so I need to get to work!

Can anyone explain why he did the database this way?

This didn't solve my problem but was a straight, understandable answer to one of my questions.