Can You Help With My Understanding Of Encrypting The Packages And/or SQL Server Storage?

Hello,



I've been using SSIS for a while and think I get the gist of how it works (and it works nicely!).



However, because of the configuration on my machine I am constantly moving the dtsx files around (long story). Sometimes I make a full image backup and then later restore those SSIS packages.



The problem is that even if I copy the dtsx files to a different directory and then copy them back (without making any changes) I get a 'Cannot Aquire Connection' message. Other times I get errors that have to do with the encryption of the individual package. For those, I just reset the package to save with a password, save it, and then reopen it and can resave it again with the userkey encryption. This one occured when I move the packages from one machine to another.



Is there a best (or at least good) way to save packages with the sensitive data that won't force me to reconfigure it each time I move a package around? Or have to enter passwords each time?



Also, what is the advantage of saving the files in SQL Server? I assume you are not actually saving the files, just the data about them. I just don't understand it enough to even ask an intelligent question about it.



Thank you for the help.



-Gumbatman