Solution developers will often have different versions of Dynamics NAV installed on a single machine for their development environment. The way this is often implemented is to fully install the latest version and simply copy the Classic Client binary files for earlier versions into separate folders so you have something like this:
NAV 2009 R2 fully installed with an R2 SQL Server database
C:\NAVCLIENTS\NAV 40 SP3\ClassicClient (containing NAV binary files. A NAV 4.0 SP3 database is also accessible on the machine)
C:\NAVCLIENTS\NAV 50 SP1\ClassicClient (similar setup to above)
C:\NAVCLIENTS\NAV 2009\ClassicClient
C:\NAVCLIENTS\NAV 2009 SP1\ClassicClient
This approach has been working for solution developers for some time now. However, after installing Dynamics NAV 2009 R2, if you then try to view the Layout for an NAV 2009 SP1 Report you will get the following error:
—————————
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Classic
—————————
It is not possible to instantiate the Visual Studio bridge.
—————————
OK
—————————
This is due to a design change in NAV 2009 R2 which uses the .NetBridge rather than the old Visual Studio bridge component. However, the Visual Studio bridge files are included with the binaries in the NAV 2009 SP1 Classic Client folder so you can avoid the above error by running REGASM.EXE to register the DLL. The REGASM.EXE is included in the .Net Framework folder so executing the following command from within the NAV 2009 SP1 Classic Client folder should do the trick:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\regasm.exe Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.VisualStudioBridge.DLL
Of course, the REGASM.EXE may be located in a different path in your machine so alter the above command line as required.
Gerard Conroy
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Support