SQL Server Customer Advisory Team - SQL Server Best Practices

Writer: Fernando Caro

Technical Reviewers: Jimmy Wu, Sanjay Mishra, Qingsong Yao, Juergen Thomas, Burzin Patel, Wanda He, Tres London

Published: October 2009

Applies to: SQL Server 2008

Summary: Collations are essential in setting up a database and for database operations. They are used at the server and database level, but they can also be used at the column or expression level. With SQL Server 2008, new Windows collations (denoted by *_100 in the collation name) were added that are in full alignment with the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems. Some of these new collations are not supported with earlier versions of the native data provider during connection to a SQL Server 2008 database, if both the client and the server environment are not in Unicode. It is therefore important to understand these collation scenarios and corresponding solutions.

For further details please download the whitepaper from: http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/9/4/d948f981-926e-40fa-a026-5bfcf076d9b9/Pre-SQLServer2008_NativeDataProviders_and_NewCollations.docx

Whitepapers

Working with the New SQL Server 2008 Collations and Earlier Versions of the Native Data Provider