database

As indicated in other reviews, this product is horribly buggy. Its only consistency is that it is creatively inconsistent. A rating of 1 is too high.

It's unfortunate that there is no similar competitive product available. Otherwise, this product would be yesterday's toast.

Your report info is stored in a binary file. It's a nightmare in there. Plus, unexpected and inexplicable random corruption of the binary destroys a great deal of work. Back up often.

Installation procedure: poor
Ease of use: poor
Intuitiveness: poor
Documentation: poor
Technical support: poor
Reliability: poor

I don't have the space to convey just how much production time is continually being lost to this abysmally bad product in our shop of senior developers. I could go on for days. Try a little experiment before buying it: go to the CrystalDecisions website and look at some of the most common errors reported. Basic stuff like INSTALLING the product, getting it ready to package up with an install application, pointing it to a DB through just about any connection technology. And it's all downhill from there. I still don't get why there isn't a better product out there yet.

The program is full of holes and traps for the programmer. The new method of including the report in VB programs uses a lot of overhead and slows a VB program down if the number of reports is more then 4 or 5. Some necessary dependacy files are not included and it will not easly load onto computers not using the internet (a great many business computers). Crystal Software includes a 60 days support package that is not at all enough. Just visit the Crystal developer web site to view some of the problems. Save your money and use your older versions until they get it right.