Execute an SSIS Package created with VS2008 on SQL Server 2005

Question

Maybe a stupid question but... I created an SSIS package using VS2008 Professional. I want to deploy and execute it on a server running SQL Server 2005. When I try to run it I get an error stating the version of the Execute Package Utility on the server is different than the version of the package I'm trying to execute (makes sense, since I created the package with the newer version of VS).

To my knowledge Microsoft doesn't simply provide a download of the EPU to "upgrade" it, so how do I execute the package on a server that's running the previous version of SQL Server? Do I need to install a "throwaway" copy of SQL 2008 just to update the package, or what? On my workstation (which has VS2008) it runs fine against SQL 2005.

Answer 1

You can try installed the Express edition of SQL Server 2008 and see if the included dtexec will work. Unfortunately, the configuration you are attempting to run is not supported and will likely incur errors.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, you can't do this. It makes no sense since you can run SSIS against different databases (what if you were running a package on a server that didn't even use SQL Server?) but you'll get that version error if you created it in BIDS 2008.

Answer 3

As I'm about to embark on the same type of project, so the solution seems to be to use VS2005 to create the SSIS package, and and do the deployment. The package is still executable through our VS2008 code, but just can't create/deploy to 2005.

WHY?! OH WHY!? :(