I’m just setting up RSinteract on a client’s 64 bit server which has Windows 2003 and SQL 2008. With most RSinteract installations IIS is installed as a prerequisite to Reporting Services but IIS isn’t needed for Reporting Services 2008. I guess this will become a common sticking point with SQL 2008 installations so here’s the solution…

The first problem I got was in the RSinteract installer (whoops, should have copied the error message) so we installed IIS and then RSinteract. When I hit the site I got this error:

The XML page cannot be displayed

Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.

---

A name was started with an invalid character. Error processing resource ‘http://myserver/RSinteract’. Line 1, Positio…

<%@ Page EnableViewState="false" Language="c#" ValidateRequest="false" AutoEventWireup="True" Codebehind="Main.aspx.cs" I…

I guess this is because IIS isn’t configured for ASPNET by default so I ran:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe –i

Which gave me the following error:

The error indicates that IIS is in 64 bit mode, while this application is a 32 bit application and thus not compatible.

So I made a slight change to point to the 64 bit .NET folder:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -i

After an iisreset I was now getting a 404 error from aspx pages, the final step was to open IIS (type inetmgr at the command prompt) and go to the “Web Service Extensions” node and enable ASP.NET v2.0.50727. Another iisreset for good measure and we’re now up and running:)

Here’s a quick demo of the new indicators feature. It’s a pretty trivial one but shows the potential.

Server Error in ‘/RSinteract’ Application.

Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.ReportingServices.Interfaces’ or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.ReportingServices.Interfaces’ or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.

Here’s a sneak preview of the new look and feel and some of the new features included in the upcoming major release of RSinteract.

• New formatting options including: Font, Font Size, Font Style
• Instant formatting options from the field selection screen
• New conditional formatting options as above and more!
• Indicator images in the report for creating simple instant dashboards.
• Selectable Join types for joining tables from the front end
• Join tables direct from the edit section screen, allowing the addition of data to existing SQL reports.
• Support for SQL Server 2008
• Improved field selection in the new report wizard
• New tree structure for creating SQL reports making it even faster and easier to find the data you want.
• New tree structure in the SQL filter screen drop downs to allow quicker selection of filter field
• Updated Look and Feel
• Beta of Windows SharePoint Services support
• Improved Custom Fields Editor
• Report Branding support
• The much missed previous button is back (excuse the pun)!
• Plus lots and lots of bug fixes!

Let us know if you like it or not by commenting!