For the purposes of this article, I ran Crystal Reports 8 on a test server with the following specifications:

• One single 450mhz Processor;
• 128MB RAM;
• 10GB hard drive, partitioned;
• Domino Server 5.03;
• Windows Server 2000;
• Internet Explorer 5.0.

Please note that Seagate indicates in its knowledge base that the Windows 2000 platform is supported only for pre-release versions. However, I ran it successfully on the release version of Windows 2000 without any significant problems.

Don't forget the basics
When installing the Crystal Reports Web Server on Windows NT (which you will be doing for the tasks illustrated in this article), there are some important things you need to do to ensure a successful installation.

First, you need to have Windows NT Administrator rights on the server where the Web Reports server will be installed. The installation updates some system files that require administrator rights.

Secondly, make sure you shut down your Domino server during installation. This sounds basic, but it needs to happen.

If you're going to be reporting from data contained in client/server databases such as Sybase, SQL Server, or Oracle, you'll want to install the appropriate database clients on the machine that will be running the Web Reporting machine. For example, if you'll be interfacing with Oracle, you would need--at a minimum--to have the SQL Net client installed.

If you're running a previous version of Crystal Reports Web Server or another Seagate reporting server (such as Seagate Info or Seagate Analysis) on your server, uninstall them and reboot. Then install Crystal Reports 8. You can't run earlier server products on the same box with the newest release.

If you'll be calling your Web reports over a firewall, you need to have your firewall administrator configure the firewall to be open for certain file types along the port that send the reports from the server back to the client's browser. This was an issue with version 7, and I have seen no evidence that it's changed with the new release. Your firewall needs to be open for the following file types, depending on the Viewer your browser clients will be using:

• Active X Viewer (Internet Explorer): .etf, .epf, .cab, .tmp, .rpt;
• Java Viewer (Netscape): .etf, .jar, .zip, .epf, .cab, .tmp, .rpt.

NTFS File Permissions
If you're running NTFS, you need to make changes to some folders in order that users can view reports through a browser.

The tables below indicate the appropriate NTFS File Permissions. This information is taken directly from the Seagate Technical Brief, "Required NTFS File Permissions for Web Reporting," available from the Seagate Web site. I am providing this information in its entirety so you can configure the Web component server directly from this article.

The root directory is required for the Crystal Web Component Server, Report Designer Component, or Crystal Automation Server to be allowed to execute on the file system and access the directory tree for what it needs to launch. Table A shows its File Permissions.