Unable to load client print control

When you search the post title on your preferred search engine (mostly Google or Bing) there are scores of blogs, websites and talks about resolving this issue.

"client print control" What is this anyway?

Well, when you open a report, you have a little control for printing the report. When you (from a client machine) click this for the first time, the report server installs an ActiveX component which is called the Client Print Control. This control helps the client machine send a print command which will then print you the page.

This might fail to load for a lot of reasons:

• The ActiveX Print control is of an older version.
• Is not installed on the client machine (Due to not enough security permissions)
• Is installed but couldn't load (Due to not enough security permissions)

Now, you will find a lot of resources talking about how to resolve this issue. Could be to manually install the print control, push install the control on all clients, create exceptions, edit registry and more.

If you are still reading this, it clearly means none of the above mentioned solutions worked for you. It din't for me either.

My client is using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. To cater his database needs, he's on SQL Server 2005 SP4 (Build version - 9.00.5057) sitting on one box. The Reporting Services, since you know is a separate component was SQL Server Reporting Services SP2 (Build version - 9.0.3042) sitting on another box.

While it doesn't matter if they sit on the same box or different, I'm only mentioning the environment. (Can be ignored)

My persistency in pursuing the solution lead me to few websites.

SQL Server requirements and recommendations for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
How to determine the version and edition of SQL Server and its components
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List

And hence a decision to upgrade SQL Server report server to a similar build as of SQL Server. So we went for a Report Server upgrade from SP2 to SP3 (at first).

The issue was resolved, even though the build versions are still not same (Report Server build was 9.0.4035). I'm hoping that other things should be fine as well. If not, we will consider upgrading Reporting Services to SP4 then.

As of now, I'm sipping coffee :)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook Configuration Troubleshooting

CRM Outlook Client Subject Matter Experts have devised a wizard that you can follow to fix CRM Outlook Client Configuration Issues. Whether you use CRM Online or CRM On-Premise, go ahead by selecting your deployment to get to-the-point fixture solution.

A very useful piece of information can be read in full here.

Process Explorer

What files and folders are open by an application, are not hidden anymore. Process Explorer tracks down dll version issues, and keeps a check on all the files and directories an Application or Windows is referencing.

Process Explorer download link

CRM 2011: Marketing List and Insight

You might be an Information Worker, a Programmer or you might have both qualities and so would be your point-of-views. If you've worked with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 long enough, you already know about the new Dynamic Marketing List introduced. Let's deal with these point-of-views:

• An Information Worker point-of-view and
• A programmer point-of-view

Prior to that let's, identify the differences between Static and Dynamic Marketing Lists

Static List

Static Marketing List can be built using the Lookup or Advanced Find. You can add or remove members from the list. However it requires human intervention.

Dynamic List

A dynamic Marketing List allows you to define parameters which displays records based on your criteria. For example, you could define a criteria to display all Account records from "Consulting" Industry. When a new Account is created and has the Industry value set to "Consulting", CRM automatically displays that in your dynamic Marketing List.

Now that you know the basic definition, let's understand them better:

Information Worker Point-of-View

When you create a dynamic Marketing List, you define a query to populate your Member List, which is great. Your list is at it's best whenever you need it.

While I was at it; exploring, I noticed the marketing list did not appear in the associated view of an existing Account who was the member of the Marketing List (screen shots below). This is absolutely normal IWs as CRM doesn't really store this list in the database. It wouldn't appear under associated Accounts / Contacts or Leads. Further explanation continues at Programmer's point-of-view below.

Marketing List Record: Account Marketing List.
Marketing List Members of type dynamic contains "A Store"

Account Record: A Store.
The Marketing List Associated View doesn't has any record

Programmer's Point-of-View

This is why IWs don't see the Marketing List in the Associated View. An important difference to notice is the way Marketing Lists are stored in CRM database. Static Marketing List is stored in two tables as mentioned here.

List - This table stores the information about the Marketing List

List Member - This table is used to associate the Account / Contact or Lead to the Marketing List and hence stores the either AccountID, ContactID or LeadID against the ListID.

In contrast to this is the Dynamic Marketing List, which doesn't use both tables. Instead it stores a FetchXML query in the List table which fetches the list on-demand at runtime.

Now, how useful could that be to fetch data using the CRM 2011 SDK.

Hope this explanation proves beneficial. Cheers!!

Top CRM Resources

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog: Here you can connect with CRM team for all the news & views on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. So much on development, customization, implementation, CRM scoops, announcements, documentation, download links. You are only beginning to learn about CRM :)

Dynamics Forums: Ask and it shall be given. Q&A resource on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Anything from "What is CRM" to "Can I find a Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner in Antarctica", you will receive an expert advice.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Wiki: Well organized page from an introduction to CRM to development, deployment, articles, whitepaper, resources and much more. You can possibly reach every official resource on CRM on the internet, from here.

More social resources: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

Time to grab some knowledge folks!