repeated data

VB 2008, Crystal that comes with.

I've got 3 tables.

Customers, software, hardware.

Software and hareware both have the exact same fields, they are seprate tables only for organization purposes.

Software and Hardware are related to customers via inner joins.

I've a group name: Customer ID
2 detail areas: one for hardware, one for software.

When i run the report what im looking for are all hardware items together in their detail area, followed by all software items.

hardware item 1
hardware item 2
hardware item 3
hardware item 4

software item 1
software item 2
software item 3
software item 4
etc

What im currently getting looks like this:

Hardware item 1
software item 1
hardware item 1
software item 2
hardware item 1
software item 3
hardware item 1
software item 4

hardware item 2
software item 1
hardware item 2
software item 2
etc

I know if i put the hardware and software tables into subreports and bring them in via links this will work. I'm trying to find a way to keep this all in one report though. Previously when using MS Access I would write a query that had a union statement in it. The crystal database expert doesnt appear to support that.

Any help please?

You can edit the sql query in Crystal and write your own union query. You need to have a field that distinguishes software from hardware.

how? I've looked everywhere I can think and cant find that

On Database menu in Crystal 8.5, Show SQL Query and you can edit it in place but I am trying to figure it out in XI and can't get access to edit in the same place, so I am not sure where it is. Don't know which version VB2008 translates to.