Mind going blank -

Well, this would depend on how you are trying to accomplish this.  You can get the machine name / IP address out of the connection string from the data source, but this won't give you the share of that machine.  If you just have a machine name, you can use the

Dns.Resolve("MachineName")

to get the IP of the machine.  But if you have the machine name that too may be enough.  The second part of this is knowing the share of the machine.  Before we move on, another way to parse a connection string is to place it in an SqlConnectionStringBuild and you get get the machine part:

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionStringBuilder sql = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(MicroFour.StrataFrame.Data.DataBasics.DataSources[""].ConnectionString);

After you have the machine name, there are other obstacles before you can start writing files.  One thought may be to use the new FILESTREAM option in SQL Server 2008.  The DDT supports this now as well if you choose to go down this path.  This can be more complicated on deployment, but the files are stored externally from SQL but processed through SQL.  This way you can use Express and not eat into your database size while still going through your data process.

Thanks very much, Trent.  This should get me going.  I have control of the server box so I can precreate the server folders and their permissions.  Just wanted to learn the trick of discovering the server box's name so I didn't have to rely on making it an app setting ( If I did that I was considering pulling it when the connectionmanager first found the database after installation )

Good to know DDT is supporting Filestream as I'm also considering that for some other stuff.

And good luck with Rob Ryan

Hi Charles,
Even though you may have control of the network for this application, I would use this server location in a configuration table instead so you can simply choose the location and use it everywhere you need it in your application.

Relying on finding networking shares could be tricky and if for whatever reason in the future the network configuration changes (ex: Server crash, etc) then your application could end up broken.

Edhy Rijo

Hi Charles.

Expanding a bit from what Trent gave you:

And good luck with Rob Ryan

Yeah...you passed him off to us.  But if you look at the stats, he did improve your defense a lot.  If they keep Colt McCoy in as starter this next year, I think that you may finally have a quarterback!