Creating Working Folders and Environment Variables
New: 14 April 2006
In this task, you will create the working folder (C:\DeploymentTutorial) and the new system environment variables (DataTransfer and LoadXMLData) that you will use in later tutorial tasks.
The working folder is at the root of the C drive. If you must use a different drive or location, you can do that. However, you need to note this location and then use it wherever the tutorial refers to the location of the DeploymentTutorial working folder.
In a later lesson, you will deploy packages that are saved to the file system to the sysdtspackages90 table in the msdb SQL Server database. Ideally you will deploy the Integration Services packages to a different computer. If that is not possible, you can still learn a lot from doing this tutorial by deploying the packages to an instance of SQL Server that is on the local computer. The environment variables that are used on the local and destination computers have the same variable names, but different values are stored in the variables. For example, on the local computer, the value of the environment variable DataTransfer references the C:\DeploymentTutorial folder, whereas on the target computer the environment variable DataTransfer references the C:\DeploymentTutorialInstall folder.
If you plan to deploy to the local computer, you need to create only one set of environment variables; however, you will need to update the value of the environment variables to an appropriate value before you do the local deployment.
If you plan to deploy the packages to a different computer, you must create two sets of environment variables: one set for the local computer, and one set for the destination computer. You can create only the variables for the source computer now, and create the variables for the destination computer later, but you must have both the folder and environment variables available on the destination computer before you can install the packages on that computer.
To create the local working folder
Right-click the Start menu, and click Explore.
Click Local Disk (C:).
On the File menu, point to New, and then click Folder.
Rename New Folder to DeploymentTutorial.
To create local environment variables
On the Start menu, click Control Panel.
In Control Panel, double-click System.
In the System Properties dialog box, click the Advanced tab, and then click Environment Variables.
In the Environment Variables dialog box, in the System variables frame, click New.
In the New System Variable dialog box, type DataTransfer in the Variable name box, and C:\DeploymentTutorial\datatransferconfig.dtsconfig in the Variable value box.
Click OK.
Click New again, and type LoadXMLData in the Variable name box, and C:\DeploymentTutorial\loadxmldataconfig.dtsconfig in the Variable value box.
Click OK to exit the Environment Variables dialog box.
Click OK to exit the System Properties dialog box.\
Optionally, restart your computer. If you do not restart the computer, the name of the new variable will not be displayed in the Package Configuration Wizard, but you can still use it.
To create destination environment variables
On the Start menu, click Control Panel.
In Control Panel, double-click System.
In the System Properties dialog box, click the Advanced tab, and then click Environment Variables.
In the Environment Variables dialog box, in System variables frame, click New.
In the New System Variables dialog box, type DataTransfer in the Variable name box, and C:\DeploymentTutorialInstall\datatransferconfig.dtsconfig in the Variable value box.
Click OK.
Click New again, and type LoadXMLData in the Variable name box, and C:\DeploymentTutorialInstall\loadxmldataconfig.dtsconfig in the Variable value box.
Click OK to exit the Environment Variables dialog box.
Click OK to exit the System Properties dialog box.\
Optionally, restart your computer.