Crystal Reports XI is fully backwards compatible with previous versions except for anything prior to version 6. It can open any report from these versions and display them.

In Crystal Reports XI, the Command Object replaces the functionality of Crystal Dictionaries, Crystal Queries, and Crystal Info Views. An XI report that uses this functionality will have to be updated to use the Command Object instead.

Another question that comes up - can previous versions of Crystal Reports open an XI report? Yes, versions 9 and 10 can - but with limited functionality. The new features in Crystal Reports (e.g. Dynamic Cascading Prompts), will not be available to previous versions. The report will run without these new features. For example, in the case of Dynamic Cascading Prompts, the older versions will simply prompt the user with standard prompts. The dynamic/cascading functionality won't be available.

Crystal Reports version 8.5 and before cannot open a Crystal Reports XI report.