Reports cannot be deployed from VS 2005 to Reporting Services in WSS integration mode at 1:42 PM

I tried to deploy reports from VS 2005 from Dev machine to Prod Report Server across different domains, but VS 2005 did not allow me to deploy.

The Reporting Services on Prod was set up in WSS integration mode. I set up TargetDataSourceFolder, TargetReportFolder and TargetServerURL in VS 2005 on my Dev machine as mentioned in MSDN article "Deploying Reports, Models, and Shared Data Sources to a SharePoint Site". Then I tried to deploy reports to Prod machine. But VS 2005 keeps showing "Report Services Login" window, even when I used Administrator account of Prod.

The WSS log file on the Prod machine shows this error: "The file you are attempting to save or retrieve has been blocked from this Web site by the server administrators."

Solution? After two-day frustration and research, then the problem was solved: I need use Internet Explorer to log into WSS and check the "Remember my password" checkbox (Very important!). Then I could deploy from VS 2005 without seeing the login dialog window. The deployed report on Prod showed the author was the same account that I used to login from IE.

The same trick can be applied to Report Builder. When user tries to use Report Builder in WSS to build ad-hoc report, he/she should make sure to check the "Remember my password" checkbox in the login window. Otherwise, the user will see "unauthorized" error when downloading Report Builder application.

Do not remove VS 2005 and install VS 2008 if ... at 2:36 PM

Do not remove VS 2005 from your computer and install VS 2008 if:

1. You want to develop Business Intelligence solutions with SQL Server 2005, because VS 2008 does not support those projects (Report Designer, Report Model ...). Or to say, Microsoft does not want you to work on SQL Server 2005 with their own latest IDE!

2. You want to build Workflow (WF) solution for SharePoint. You will realize the old way in VS 2005 to install Features.xml is easier to use.