I appreciate that... thank you.

xp_cmdshell was the hint I needed...

I ran that and low and behold there's that value that keeps haunting me.

Bouncing the SQL Service was my next step,...

I searched the DSTX file of my package and no where is the value that is coming thru for my problem variable mentioned.

Something somewhere on the server I'm running this...

The database engine service or the SSIS service?

That still doesn't add up entirely, because I can get changes in env vars to make it thru w/ out any server or...

Brandie, thanks for the reply. I view Environment Variables as Package Configurations when talking SSIS. So all Env Vars are package configurations, not all package configurations are environment variables....

My registry looks a little different. Each instance is listed in the tree, but under each instance is an attribute called "CurrentVersion", for all instances this value is 9.0.3042, even...

I do see the hotfix as installed when I look in Add/Remove Programs.