Calling `crystal report` executable from VB

I`m trying to help a friend out with a Crystal Report generated app. Its a little exe, but when you run it you get a little windows front end. We dont want to have to deal with the front end - we just want to load it, do the stuff, then close it, unattended (ie overnight).

I wrote a little visual basic app to do the calling of the report - basically just :

RetVal = Shell(Params, 1)

and i was wondering if anyone here has come across this problem/needed to do something similar. I`ve tried running the crystal report app and tried -h, /? etc but to no avail.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Alex.