Tutorials » How to run a DTS VB package in the .NET framework

Overview

Data Transformation Services (DTS) remains an important tool in the arsenal of database administrators and web designers that need to move data between data repositories. These repositories can include SQL Server 2000, a variety of other databases as well as text files, and Excel files. You're also being compelled to move towards the Visual Studio .NET framework as you move forward with software development based on the Microsoft platform. Therefor you will invariably run into the problems outlined below.

With ten minutes of cleanup you can use a DTS package generated by SQL Server 2000 within the Visual Studio .NET framework. You'll have all the benefits of running in the Visual Studio .NET framework plus be able to programmatically control the behavior of the DTS package. This article will get you there quickly while navigating a path that isn't always straight forward.

There are two important reasons why you'll want to do this.

The .NET environment provides the common language runtime (CLR) with improved memory management. Utilizing the CLR is critical in a web based application that needs to run for multiple days without running out of memory.

If you develop your web application against a development SQL Server and then run it against a production SQL Server you'll find it cumbersome to configure the data source/destination of a DTS package saved as meta data or in structured storage. However, you can easily configure the data connections in your saved VB package to reflect the various stages of your release process.

The rest of this article explains exactly how to do this upgrade, and then how to apply some of the common edits required to bring the code completely up to standard. Microsoft has also provided documentation on the changes to the Visual Basic language. You can also reference Visual Basic .NET upgrade guide. or Applications Created in Previous Versions of Visual Basic for further information.

Contents

1. Overview
2. Introduction
3. Making the fixes
4. Warnings left in the code
5. Summary