Cannot open .rpt Crystal Reports file in Visual Studio 2010

Question

I have taken over an existing C# project and am using Visual Studio 2010 with .NET framework 4.0.

The application uses Crystal Reports. It seems like the definitions

Answer 1

I suspect the file-type association for .RPT is broken. You may have tried opening the .RPT before you had Crystal Reports installed and accidentally selected something else to open it. Now it probably automatically opens them incorrectly.

This article describes changes between Windows versions and how to edit them: http://www.technize.com/advanced-file-types-association-in-windows-7/

That said, there is a quicker easier way to do a quick test to confirm if those .RPT files are valid.

In Visual Studio, inside your C# project, do an 'Add New Item > Reporting > Crystal Reports' and it will start a wizard for adding reports to your project. When this happens, you'll be prompted to 'create a new report' or to 'open from existing file'. Choose open existing and browse to your .RPT file. This should force Crystal Reports to attempt to open this file in the Visual Studio based Crystal Report designer.

Best of luck with it.