I’m in the process of developing an ADO .Net XML Data Provider which works with Data Sets. I want to use this custom Data Provider through Crystal Report Designer 2008 so that I can access it from the “Standard Report Creation Wizard\Available Data Sources” section. How can I do this? I read the following in the “creating custom adddins.doc” documentation.

“Crystal Reports (CR) 2008 installs a new managed dll called DotNetExternalCommandAdapter.DLL and installs it into the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). CR 2008 uses this dll to search and load files with a csc prefix in CR 2008’s AddIns subdirectory in a similar way it looks for database drivers, export drivers and UFLs. To create an Add-In the developer needs to reference this dll and inherit two classes from it, ICommand and ICommandDLL.”

I have the following questions,

1) As it mentions above how can I make Crystal find my custom Data Provider when it searches for the database drivers?
2) Is there another class I can inherit from when creating my custom data provider? If so where can I find some documentation regarding this?
3) Can I register my custom data provider in to the GAC and will Crystal find it if so how can I register my custom Data Provider? Will GACUtil work for Crystal as well?

Thanks in Advance,
Regards,
Chanaka