C# 'Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportViewer' Control Not Showing Print Preview on Windows 11

Question

C# 'Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportViewer' Control Not Showing Print Preview on Windows 11

Wright, Alyssa 0

In a C# application built with .NET Framework 4.8 and running on Windows 11, an issue is being faced with the 'Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportViewer' control. Clicking the print button results in a print preview window that displays "No preview available".

Suggestions from community posts have included modifying the printer registry key to "PreferLegacyPrintDialog", which does not resolve the issue. This change returns the functionality seen in Windows 10, which also lacks a print preview but does not display the "No preview available" message.

Additionally, the same "No preview available" message occurs when printing from Notepad and Notepad++.

Is there a solution to enable a preview of the report in the Windows 11 print preview screen?

Viorel 124.9K Reputation points

2025-09-30T14:07:05.2533333+00:00

It is probably not a defect, but a missing functionality.

1 answer

Your answer

Viorel 124.9K Reputation points

2025-09-30T14:07:05.2533333+00:00

It is probably not a defect, but a missing functionality.

Answer 1

Susmitha T (INFOSYS LIMITED) 755 Microsoft External Staff

Thanks for reaching out!

This happening because on windows 10 and earlier, ReportViewer uses the old (GDI-based) print dialog/preview. That dialog did not have a true preview, but you could still print fine.

On Windows 11, Microsoft replaced the print UI with a modern XAML print dialog.

If the app doesn’t provide a preview handler, Windows shows “No preview available”.
his is why you see it in ReportViewer, Notepad, Notepad++, and other legacy apps.

So, it’s not a bug in your code or ReportViewer, but a Windows-level change.

Workarounds / Options:

1. Force the Legacy Print Dialog: Windows 11 has a registry option that makes all apps fall back to the classic print dialog (which avoids the broken preview screen):

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\PrintWorkflow]

"PreferLegacyPrintDialog"=dword:00000001

Restart the app after setting this.
Result: You won’t get “No preview available,” but you also won’t get a live preview — just the old Win32 print dialog (same behavior as Windows 10).

2. Provide Your Own Preview in ReportViewer:

ReportViewer itself has a built-in report preview pane (before you print).
Instead of relying on Windows’ print preview, direct users to use the ReportViewer’s own preview and print directly.
This bypasses the OS-level preview issue.

3. Update Windows / Drivers:

some builds of Windows 11, this behavior is driver dependent.
Make sure you have the latest Windows updates and latest printer drivers installed. Some printer drivers add back proper previews.

4. Alternative Printing Workflow: If you must have a proper preview:

Export the report to PDF (reportViewer.LocalReport.Render("PDF", ...) ) and open it in a PDF viewer (which supports full preview and printing).
This is the most reliable option for apps that need true WYSIWYG print preview.

Let me know if you need any further help with this. We'll be happy to assist.

If you find this helpful, please mark the response as "answered".

Wright, Alyssa 0 Reputation points

2025-09-30T13:44:06.9733333+00:00

Hi, thank you for the response!

Unfortunately, the workarounds you outlined don’t quite meet my needs. What I’m really trying to achieve is having the Windows 11 print preview window actually display what will be printed. The use case is that users often need to select just one or a few pages to print, and being able to see a live preview as they adjust the page range would be very helpful.

You mentioned that “If the app doesn’t provide a preview handler, Windows shows ‘No preview available’.” Could you clarify what it would take for an application like mine to provide a preview handler? If that’s possible, would doing so allow the Windows 11 print preview window to show the report pages instead of the “No preview available” message?

Thanks again for your help!
Susmitha T (INFOSYS LIMITED) 755 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-10-01T11:10:48.9233333+00:00

Thanks for reaching out!

Currently, the windows 11 print dialog shows "No preview available" when printing from our application because the ReportViewer control uses the older GDI printing pipeline. Windows 11's modern print preview only works with apps that provide XPS/PDF - based print content, which ReportViewer does not natively support.

The good news is that you can still preview reports before printing using the ReportViewer's built in print preview, which shows each page exactly as it will appear on paper. From there you can select pages to print.

To enable live previews inside the Windows print dialog itself, the recommended approach is to use the ReportViewer preview window to select pages before printing.

Let me know if you need any further help with this. We'll be happy to assist.

If you find this helpful, please mark the response as "answered".
Wright, Alyssa 0 Reputation points

2025-10-01T13:31:23.99+00:00

Thanks for clarifying! I do see the report pages inside the ReportViewer control, but I don’t see an option there to select which pages to print. The only place I’ve found page range options is in the Windows print dialog, which is where the “No preview available” issue occurs.

Could you point me to how page selection is supposed to work within the ReportViewer preview itself before printing?

Below is what I see in the ReportViewer control.
Susmitha T (INFOSYS LIMITED) 755 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-10-02T11:31:31.81+00:00

The ReportViewer toolbar allows you to preview report pages on screen, but it does not provide page range selection directly in that toolbar. Page selection is available when you open the print dialog from ReportViewer.

On windows 11, the modern print dialog shows "No preview available" because ReportViewer uses the older GDI printing system, which windows cannot render in its preview. However, you can still type page ranges (e.g., "2-4") into the "pages" field, and only those pages will be printed.

If you prefer to see the classic print dialog with built-in page range selection (and avoid the "No preview available" message), It need to be enabled by using Windows' legacy print dialog setting. Alternatively, you can export the report to PDF and print selected pages from there with a live preview.

This needs longer- term improvement, but for now using either the legacy print dialog or the export-to-PDF option will give you the ability to preview and selected pages reliably before printing.

Let me know if you need any further help with this. We'll be happy to assist. If you find this helpful, please mark the response as "answered".
Susmitha T (INFOSYS LIMITED) 755 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-10-07T05:52:11.5633333+00:00

"Hope you're doing well. We're following up on the thread. Please let us know whether the issue persists or has been resolved. If the issue has been resolved, kindly mark the response as "answered". We'll close this thread by 20th October, so we are hoping for your reply before that".
Susmitha T (INFOSYS LIMITED) 755 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-10-10T05:10:25.7766667+00:00

"Hope you're doing well. We're following up on the thread. Please let us know whether the issue persists or has been resolved. If the issue has been resolved, kindly mark the response as "answered". We'll close this thread by 20th October, so we are hoping for your reply before that".
Susmitha T (INFOSYS LIMITED) 755 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-10-15T04:51:48.9566667+00:00

"Hope you're doing well. We're following up on the thread. Please let us know whether the issue persists or has been resolved. If the issue has been resolved, kindly mark the response as "answered". We'll close this thread by 20th October, so we are hoping for your reply before that".
Susmitha T (INFOSYS LIMITED) 755 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-10-21T04:36:56.63+00:00

Since the thread has been open for a considerable time, we will be proceeding to close the thread. If the issue persists or reoccurs, please feel free to raise a new thread. We’ll be happy to assist you further.

Share via

C# 'Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportViewer' Control Not Showing Print Preview on Windows 11

1 answer

Your answer