From a DBA's perspective, first and foremost you need to guarantee the databases are successfully being backed up. Once you have a successful disk backup the file can be shunted...

I'd just use something like GZip and call it via WScript.Shell in the ActiveXScript task.

Much, much easier.

Also, we have a MSX/TSX setup so for some of our older DTS packages that don't read their config dynamically, we alter the job on the MSX server and then...

We run DTS packages on multiple servers and they each read their config info from a local table.

For administration, each of these tables are edited via a central ASP.Net...

If you're using Active Directory, you could setup a linked server to run LDAP queries.

You can use the stock standard DIR command executed via xp_cmdshell. Just insert the result into a temp table.

EG:

 CREATE TABLE #dir (
  [ID] int IDENTITY(1,1)
  , [Dir] varchar(255) 
)
 
 INSERT INTO #Dir([Dir])
 EXEC...

Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea

It would probably be better to backup to seperate files. That way...

We use a database table to store this info. If the server is up and running then the table is available.

In fact we store all Global Variables for each package...

Not to sure about 2005, but in SQL 2000 RS it was by design. We had to include an extra device info parameter to output ANSI characters.

It's probably creating the CSV file in unicode format. SQL 2000 Reporting Services has the same issue.

As noted on the home page the guys are aware of this issue and are trying to fix it ASAP.

I'm sure they're pulling many a late night to fix the...

What I would do is have a short VBScript as the first step of the SQL Agent Job that checks for the file. Then just set the appropriate amount of...

That's easily done with a few global variables and a Dynamic Properties task.

300,000+ members and still growing is a testament to the great job done by all you guys.

I can't count the number of times I've come here to find the solution...

The idea of building the whole query as as string would work. Cons: (a) execution speed (can't be pre-compiled), (b) error detection (none at design/pre-compile/save time, only avail. at run-time),...