That's interesting (and detailed) commentary. Not in a position to test right now so I'll ask you. No doubt like a lot of people here I'm looking to identify a technique to "automate" (i.e minimise manual intervention/reconfiguration) the deployment of an existing MP and related tasks to multiple servers.

Are you saying that I could

1. Create MP1 and it derived scheduled jobs on Server A

1A. Use SSIS to export MP1 to a DTSx file inthe file system

2. Use BIDS to open the MP1 dtsx file

2a Save the MP1 file (now open in BIDS) to Server 2

3. Somehow (there's the rub) use the MPW on Server 2 to reparse MP1 on Server 2??

I appreciate now that the SSIS dtsx export feature is to allow editing in BIDS rather than, as I assumed, to allow importation into a different SQL Server - a mechanism to migrate MPS and related jobs. I think they should actually have blocked SQL import of the DTSX because all it does is cause confusion when it doesn't emerge fully formed after the import. Then again maybe I should have read more and assumed less 🙂