About changing the connection with crystalline report forms

Question

I'm having serious problems trying to move my VB.Net project that uses SAP Crystal Reports on another computer (which has its own local MSSQL database). When I first made this project, the name of the computer on which I was working was "LUKA-LAP", and I configured it to work with a database on this computer with the name "LUKA-LAP \ SQLExpress". Now I want to transfer my application to another computer (let him call it the target computer), so I need to rebuild it and change the name of the computer (server) in accordance with another computer. However, I don’t see how I can do this without installing VS on this (target) computer and recompiling the entire project on it, which seems like useless work. I am trying to rebuild it from a third computer (the current one I own), on which I have VS and all installed tools, and there I managed to get it to work by setting up the name of this computer. But I do not want to install VS on the target computer. However, when I try to manually enter the name of the target computer, VS first tries to connect to its server, but, of course, does not find it (we are not on the same atm network) and refuses to remember the name of the connection with the name of the target computer. Is there a possible way around this check and just remember the connection, so when I run it on the target computer it just works?

Ideally, I would like to have something like Connection String from my project and use it for the Crystal Report form to connect, keeping my old commands (queries).

Answer 1

When I want to change the database, say test to production, or vice versa, I go to the database> Set Datasource Location ... From there I select the previously created connection name or Create New Connection.

When moving between computers or servers, you can also reference the DSN in the ODBC Administrator. Connection information may vary between computers, but the DSN you are referring to is the same. This avoids situations where hardcoded parts are different.

If you have sub-reports, you will also need to update the data source for each additional report.