I am looking to write reports in a reporting tool other than crystal
reports because our crystal reports design looks outdated compared to
the results we can obtain in html.

The problem we have with using the Windows.Forms WebBrowser control is
that it relies on the Internet Explorer engine to be installed on the
PC to be able to use it.

We have found that this is not an option because some of our clients
do not have a web browser interface installed at all. Windows7 does
not come with one as standard and some companies will not allow a web
browser on the machines.

We therefore have to be able to produce reports using a different html
tool of sorts. We prefer to use html as we can use View Source to
download reports from off-site servers.



Thanks in advance for any feedback

"ngrTerry" wrote:

> I am looking to write reports in a reporting tool other than crystal
> reports because our crystal reports design looks outdated compared to
> the results we can obtain in html.
>
> The problem we have with using the Windows.Forms WebBrowser control is
> that it relies on the Internet Explorer engine to be installed on the
> PC to be able to use it.
>
> We have found that this is not an option because some of our clients
> do not have a web browser interface installed at all. Windows7 does
> not come with one as standard and some companies will not allow a web
> browser on the machines.
>
> We therefore have to be able to produce reports using a different html
> tool of sorts. We prefer to use html as we can use View Source to
> download reports from off-site servers.
>
> Thanks in advance for any feedback
> .
>

There was a discussion of this on one of the newsgroups recently. My
recollection is that although IE is not installed in some versions of Windows
7, that Shdocvw.dll, is always installed. The web browser control uses the
dll, not IE. It may be that you don't have a problem, but you should
configure a test machine to confirm.

Mike

Thank you for that feedback - it is a promising thought that we will
look further into.

* Family Tree Mike wrote, On 2-11-2009 17:41:

>
>
> "ngrTerry" wrote:
>

>> I am looking to write reports in a reporting tool other than crystal
>> reports because our crystal reports design looks outdated compared to
>> the results we can obtain in html.
>>
>> The problem we have with using the Windows.Forms WebBrowser control is
>> that it relies on the Internet Explorer engine to be installed on the
>> PC to be able to use it.
>>
>> We have found that this is not an option because some of our clients
>> do not have a web browser interface installed at all. Windows7 does
>> not come with one as standard and some companies will not allow a web
>> browser on the machines.
>>
>> We therefore have to be able to produce reports using a different html
>> tool of sorts. We prefer to use html as we can use View Source to
>> download reports from off-site servers.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any feedback
>> .
>>

>
> There was a discussion of this on one of the newsgroups recently. My
> recollection is that although IE is not installed in some versions of Windows
> 7, that Shdocvw.dll, is always installed. The web browser control uses the
> dll, not IE. It may be that you don't have a problem, but you should
> configure a test machine to confirm.

Yes as far as I know that is correct. And Microsoft has removed the
Windows 7 E product from the market. European versions get an update
that allows the user to pick addition browsers to install.

So you should be safe. Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7 all come with the
required library pre-installed.

Jesse

--
Jesse Houwing
jesse.houwing at sogeti.nl