Gracefully migrate from SSRS2014/IE to SSRS2016/Edge

Question

I have a chicken-egg-problem when upgrading from SSRS2014 to SSRS2016.

• I cannot move to the new reportviewer because I still have users on IE. The new report viewer cannot print nicely on Internet Explorer: if you click print, you can download a pdf and THEN print it. Due to the large amount of reports we print, this is no feasable option.
• I cannot migrate away from Internet Explorer because of the old report viewer: The ActiveX print control only works in Internet Explorer.

So I want to migrate to the new report server, yet show the reports through the old viewer for IE-users. So my test web server has both the new and the old reporting component. If the client uses Internet Explorer, I serve the old one. Otherwise, they get the new one.

In my test environment, reports from SSRS 2016 are rendered correctly by the old reporting control. (Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms version 11.0.0.0) However, when I try to print, the client displays a dialog box "Unable to load client print control"

On my server, an exception is thrown:

The report server could not find the internal resource '2015.130.1601.05rsclientprint.cab'. (rsInternalResourceNotFoundError) 

[ReportServerException: The report server could not find the internal resource '2015.130.1601.05rsclientprint.cab'. (rsInternalResourceNotFoundError)]
   Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.SoapReportExecutionService.WritePrintCab(ClientArchitecture arch, Stream stream) +797
   Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ServerReport.WritePrintCab(ClientArchitecture arch, Stream stream) +75
   Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.HttpHandler.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) +304

I know there is a new reporting control, making the ActiveX print control obsolete. However, I'd like to prevent a big bang implementation. Printing with the old control only works on Internet Explorer, so all users use IE. Printing with the new control DOESN'T work with IE.

(If 100+ users print 50+ reports a day, having to download a pdf and print that is a BIG difference.)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/reporting-services/report-server/enable-and-disable-client-side-printing-for-reporting-services says: "Previous versions of Reporting Services used an ActiveX control that required downloading to the client computer from the report server. If you upgrade your report server to SQL Server 2016, the print control is not removed from the report server or client computers."

This suggests that ActiveX printing is also possible with the new server, probably through the old Report viewer control. If that works, I can put the new control next to the old one, and gradually migrate my users to a modern browser.

Did anybody get this to work without restarting and installing SQL Server 2014, and upgrading?

Answer 1

To migrate SSRS Reports from 2014 to 2016. Simply follow below steps:

1. Backup and restore original databases
2. Backup encryption key
3. Install Ssrs 2016 on new server with managed service account.
4. Restore databases and remove server key entry from key table in the report database.
5. Configure Ssrs 2016 to look at new restored databases on same new instance.
6. Restore keys from backup.

Or visit this link :https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2692/migrating-sql-reporting-services-to-a-new-server-by-moving-the-reporting-services-databases/