It has been mentioned several places that when you create a brand new report, you need to uncheck "Save with data". Then, save the report first, before you run it for the first time.

I have done both of these steps and have ran the report within Crystal Reports which runs beautifully and all data populates correctly. BUT when I run the stand alone RPT file outside of Crystal Reports inside a report viewer (such as Crystal Reports viewer) it tells me it cannot find any saved data. The error message I get right when it opens the file states the following:

No Saved Data – This report file does not contain saved data and cannot be viewed. – to get data into the report please open and re-save in the Crystal Reports designer application with the 'Save Data Report' option selected.

The problem with this is that if the checkbox to save data is checked, it saves the data (obviously) but that data then becomes static, it wont refresh from SQL, so whatever data the report had in it when it was saved out of Crystal Reports, it is now permanent.

I am finding conflicting statements. Other users tell me not to have this checked if I want the report to auto grab data from SQL but the report viewer tells me it needs to be checked to display data.

All I want to do is have a user open the RPT file (via some RPT Viewer app) and then it automatically grab fresh data from the SQL server. It sounds simple but the RPT file wont do it.

Does anyone know how I can get this task done?

I have wrote software which opened and printed a RPT file before but the idea behind this is to allow users to point to and open a simple RPT file and print it to paper (or pdf) without the need of having to open it through a software application (other than the viewer itself). Can this not be done at all? If I can tell a program to  update and print a RPT file why can’t a viewer have the built in code to do the same? And then what is the point and purpose of a viewer then?

thanks