Visual-studio – SSIS packages failing to load in VS 2008

bidsssisvisual studio

I have a problem when trying to load an SSIS package in VS 2008. In the about it says it has "SQL Server Integration Services" installed but on loading a package I get a message that says:

Microsoft Vistual Studio is unable to load this document:

To design
Integration Services packages in Business Intelligence Development
Studio, Integration Services has to be installed by one of these
editions of SQL Server 2008: Standard, Enterprise, Developer or
Evaluation. To install Integration Services, run SQL Server Setup and
select Integration Services.

I thought maybe it was a version problem so I thought I'd look at a new Intergation Services project to play spot the difference. However when I told visual studio to create a new IS project (which was in the list quite happily) it created it and then gave me the above error message again.

To give some idea about my environment I have several version of Visual Studio (2k5, 2k8, 2k10) and several version of SQL server (2k5, 2k8) so I don't know if there is some confusion between versions…

The other thing that I am wondering is if there is a problem with what order things got installed in (ie my VS2008 wasn't installed when SSIS stuff was installed).

I am hoping there is a simple approach to this that won't mean reinstalling things. I can go to our IT to ask them to try to get it working but that would take some time. If it does come to that though I'd like to have some idea of what I should ask them to install since it does seem to be all installed currently…

So if anybody can either a) help me work out precisely what components are installed and what is missing that would be great. Bonus points for helping fix it without needing the install media…

Edit: A thought occurs to me. Coudl it be that I only have 2005 Integration Services installed? If so how can I determine that? And I still am not sure why VS is behaving as it is and letting me create a project but no SSIS in it, even if they were older versions…

Edit: Also it seems that if I load up VS 2005 I can create IS projects but of course can't load up the newer SSIS packages, I assume because they are from a newer version maybe…

Edit: Version information for SSIS in VS 2008:

Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services Designer
Version 10.0.1600.22 ((SQL_PreRelease).080709-1414 )

Best Answer

The following line can tell you the version of the package:

<DTS:Property DTS:Name="PackageFormatVersion">3</DTS:Property>

3 is for 2008, 2 is 2005 and 6 is 2012.

By the way, how patched is your system? The 10.0.1600.22 does sound like the original installation of 2008. Try to install SP3 and the latest cumulative update - this will bring your installation to 10.00.5788 and the issue might go away.