Here's the situation:
We're migrating an application written in visual basic / asp.net on VS2005 to a new home on a 64bit OS (Windows 2003 R2) from it's current home on a 32bit OS.(Windows 2003) Normally, I'd say no-problem and just copy-paste the directory housing the app to the new server and hook it up with IIS. However, this particular application uses Crystal Reports 9 to generate reports for it's users. Which means doing things the aforementioned way breaks the reporting features of the app.
I've looked around on the net and even here and so far I've gotten the impression that we'll need to redeploy the application from VS2005 to the new location and include some .msm files (Merge Modules) and a license key in the process somehow. (See: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/10ae17a6-a41d-2b10-eb9f-8dfb2a88dc7e?QuickLink=index&…)
Now, I could probably follow the guide in the link there and figure it out, but, since I'm one of those spoiled new college kids, I've just got to ask: is there any easier/quicker way of doing this? I mean, I love reading manuals about outdated tech as much as the next geek. I just would have sooner expected there to be some simple little .exe or .msi file someplace that did the heavy lifting and just asked for the keycode when it was time.
Also, is there any concern with the new server being 64bit? am I going to need to use a newer version of the Crystal Reports Redistributable to make this work? How would that change the process of redeployment? Would there need to be coding changes?
I've got 3 more applications just like this to move as well on the same development server. After that, I'll have to move production for each one of them too. So anything I can do to save time and braincells on this is a must.
