As to your first problem, you do not need to use ini files anymore. Use SSIS Configuration Files. See BOL for more info.

As for your second question, you cannot migrate...

Unless you actually need the space on the OS, I would say don't try shrink it as it will take overhead to regrow it.

having said that, what are the columns...

If you run Select ''' What do you get?

You need to double up on single quotes in SQL

Not necessarily. Provided your query in the view is using decent indexes and performant, as well as queries using the view also use index on the underlying tables, this would...

You're now on the right track. Here's how I use configs.

Connection managers are named according to some convention. _CON_SQL_ABC where:

_ ...

Me thinks... you smoking some wicked stuff.

The FK violation does not have anything to do with SSIS. Why don't you set the destination task to redirect error rows and capture...

Enter configuration files:

Why do you expect the package properties to be exposed in the variables pane? it's a variables pane. There is also a properties pane.

You can use SSIS configurations...

As a side note, your growth is, in my opinion, to small. You will end up with some bad fragmentation as well as SQL waiting to grow the file during...

Yes but more likely that it has not needed them.

On a very large and or very busy system, it's a good idea to run a job monthly / weekly to...

Statistics are used by SQL as a way of knowing what is in a column, set of columns or an index.

When you create a table and query it, providing you...

I would say it is doing an implicit conversion on the data types as the column is not a int. Because of this, all indexes are ignored. The first query,...

There's no real nice way I know of because it is a process outside of SQL.

You could do a count on the table but this could be slow.

You could also...

Use file system.

There are no advantages to using MSDB except the backup, which is outweighed by the hassle of editing etc...

Security can be put on the FS as well as...

if it is a log corruption, you can rebuild the log. You will loose any transactions hanging around in it but will have most of your data back. Check google...

it will fail at parse time. Before a query starts running, the parser will check to ensure all objects and syntax is valid.

Why are you using a UDF? They will...