IE11 - Crystal Reports - PrintMode ActiveX now displaying PDF prompt (instead of printer prompt)?

Question

I've noticed this recently, and I don't remember it being this way:

Those familiar with Crystal, will be familiar with the Crystal Report Viewer and the toolbar:

When I press the print button I get this:

That's the prompt you receive when it is going to generate a PDF. My reports are set to use ActiveX! Clicking OK will bring up the PDF Viewer (for me Foxit).

BUT .... (there's always a but) ... if I put my website into Compatibility View and click the Print button I get the dialog I expect:

So, what's going on here? Yes, my site was already a 'Trusted Site', and every ActiveX setting you can imagine is enabled. The fact that when I'm in Compatibility View I get the correct ActiveX prompt tells me those settings are OK.

And IE11 has an ActiveX Filtering setting (Tools menu) and that's not enabled, so it's not that.

What's going on here???

EDIT: Tested in IE10 and IE9 - works fine. IE11 is when it "broke".

Hammers

Sounds like an IE issue. Is this the 64 bit IE? – Etruria

Hrmmm. Good question. I forgot to check if the default on my machine is to use 64-bit vs. 32-bit. That Active-X dll is a 32-bit version. I'll check it out. – Hammers

Opened the iexplore.exe from Program Files and Program Files (x86) and they both behaved the same. – Hammers

That's what I was going for. Too bad it didn't work. – Etruria

If you hit F12 in your IE and change the browser mode to IE10, is it working then? – Etruria

I was going to try different versions today. See when it stopped failing. Didn't realize I could hit F12 and change browser mode, can't find out how to do it ... googling now! – Hammers

Well, I kind of remember doing that before, but IE11 has hid it on me or something. I'm now reading this stackoverflow article: #17871624 – Hammers

I'm just going to pull open some VM's. True test - using the actual browsers. I'll report back. – Hammers

Opened up my IE9 VM (the VM's you download from Microsoft for testing browser versions), and it worked fine. This happened in either IE10 or IE11. I have to get an IE10 VM, going to the MS site now ... – Hammers

I'd wager that 10 will work fine. – Etruria

You would win that wager. Just downloaded an IE10 VM from modern.ie, started it, tested: worked fine. It's definitely IE 11. – Hammers

Answer 1

After following your testing I would recommend two things:

1. Check to see if there is an updated version of ActiveX available that may resolve your issue. I would check for that on the Microsoft sites as well as SAP.
2. Put up a post on the SAP Crystal forum asking for a solution. I have already checked their forum this morning but was not able to find anything related.

For now I guess you'll just have to view your app in compatibility mode or go back to IE10 until there is a fix.

EDIT: A solution was found over at the SAP forums. It was suggested to update his CR Basic version to the CR for VS version. Please see the thread here.

Etruria

I ended up over at the SAP Crystal forum (your point #2). To take a step back I'm using the Crystal Reports Basic that comes with Visual Studio 2008. Their solution is to update to the Crystal Reports that comes with Visual Studio 2010 or greater. Then, I could get updates for IE11 support. I won't get that using the version I use. Thanks for your input. – Hammers

I'm glad you got it figured out. It's a new issue for me and I'm glad that a solution was found so other people can benefit from it. – Etruria

Yes, me too. For all points. Thanks again, appreciated. I'm posting the SAP link for reference: scn.sap.com/thread/3473468 – Hammers

Updated my answer to include your link so it doesn't get overlooked. Cheers! – Etruria