I'm having a problem with CR that involves the extended desktop.

I am using Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 and CR 2008, 30 day evaluation copy.

My problem goes like this. I used extended desktop so I could put CR on my monitor while reading this CRB tutorial on my laptop so I wouldn't have to keep switching screens. But after I turned off the extended desktop, CR still goes to the big monitor instead of my laptop screen. Which is annoying, but not that big a deal. I can either maximize the screen to bring it back to my laptop monitor or can just plug in the big monitor again.

The real problem is this. Right now, when I try to use either the group expert or database expert, the dialog box for either does not show up on either my laptop monitor or the extended desktop screen and CR seems to just hang. I can tell the dialog box exists and that I just cannot see it on either monitor and that CR is not simply hanging because

1. It makes a small 'beep' noise when I click on CR. The same noise you would get if you opened up any dialog box and clicked on CR anywhere outside that dialog box. CR would give you a small noise warning like many applications if you tried to click outside a dialog box inside that application.

2. When I hit 'enter', I return to CR. This suggests that I just hit 'ok' for the dialog box and have come back.

3. Task Manager shows CR as 'Running' and not 'Not Responding'.

I have tried restarting my computer. Disabling extended desktop. Uninstalling and installing CR 2008 (evaluation copy). Nothing has worked.

Has anyone encountered this problem? After 2 days of trying I'm at a loss. CR was fine for the first 2 days and then this problem occurred. If someone can tell me how to completely wipe out CR from my computer so that I can get a clean installation that would also be helpful.

LW . . . Lawrence

Yeah, when I say turn off extended desktop I mean that I go to the desktop, right click properties-->settings and then disable the 'extend my windows desktop onto this monitor'. CR continues to go to the extended monitor even when this is disabled. I bring it back to the laptop monitor by going to the task manager and maximizing the screen. Which obviously is very weird.

I have tried shrinking the CR window to the minimum size on my screen with extended desktop enabled but no dice, I still cannot see the group expert window anywhere. The shortcut and going to Report-->Group Expert yield the same result. CR beeps at me when I click the mouse until I hit enter and returns.

This problem only happened a couple days after I started extending my desktop. I could access Group Expert for the first couple of days until I did this. And even then, it didn't happen immediately. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary to mess with it. Can I just wipe CR from my registry completely and start again? An uninstall did not work but will this work? I don't like to mess with the registry and don't have experience with it. Did I answer my own question?

LW . . . Lawrence

Go to the registry
HKCU\Software\Business Objects\Suite xx\Crystal Reports\ResizableDialogs
And modify those values, which looks a little bit to great to something smaller and you will see your masks...

Michael