SSRS report “unable to load client print control”

Question

We're using SQL Server 2008 for a (third-party) web app, and they utilise SSRS for reporting.

Recently, so I'm assuming this is related in some way to an MS patch, whenever we click on the "print" icon in a report we get an error popup:

Message from webpage
Unable to load client print control.

• The web server is Windows Server 2003 R2 x32
• The SSRS server is Windows SQL Server 2008 10.0.2531.0
• The SQL server is Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (SP1) - 10.0.2531.0 (X64)
• The clients are Windows 7 and Windows XP

All the servers are up-to-date according to Windows Update.

The SSRS server also has the "Security Update for Report Viewer Redistributable 2008 Service Pack 1 (KB971119) installed.

Answer 1

The report redist must also be installed on any application/web servers if the app is using the report viewer .net control.

Users also need admin rights to install the activeX in xp.

We automate the installation of these component to all users - similar to this: http://www.kodyaz.com/articles/client-side-printing-silent-deployment-of-rsclientPrint.aspx

This was an enlightening post when I had this problem.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brianhartman/archive/2008/11/05/client-print-fails-to-load-after-microsoft-update-956391.aspx

Answer 2

Our Server environment : SQL2008 x64 SP2 Reporting Services on Windows Server 2008 x64,

Client PC environment: Windows XP SP2 with IE6 or higher, all users are login to Active Directory, users are not members of local Administrator or power user group.

Error: When a user printing a report getting an error as "Unable to load client print control"

Solution that work for us: replace following files in sql 2008 with SQL 2008 R2

Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin RSClientPrint-x86.cab RSClientPrint-x64.cab RSClientPrint-ia64.cab

Once you replace the files one server users wont get above error and they do not required local power user or admin right to download Active X. Recommending to add report server URL as a trusted site (add to Trusted sites) via Active Directory GP.

Hope this will help for somebody to sort out this "hectic" problem. We had very tough time to find out a proper solution for this "bug".

Nishan