Important Settings for MS-SQL Server

During installation of the MS-SQL Server it is highly recommended that the Collation designation of databases is set to Latin1_General_BIN to ensure collation is the same as in sorted files.


When setting the collation, select Windows collation designator and sort order, set the collation designator to Latin_1_General and check the Binary checkbox. If MS-SQL Server 2016 is used, there is a choice between collations SQL_Latin1_General_CP437_BIN and SQL_Latin1_General_CP850_BIN. The CP850 collation should be chosen if Unicode is used in the database.

To check the general collation setting for the server execute the following query:

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY ('COLLATION');

To check the collation setting for a specific database execute the following query:

SELECT DATABASEPROPERTYEX ('[DATABASE NAME]', 'COLLATION');

Upgrading to MS-SQL Server 2012 or higher
When upgrading older databases to MS-SQL Server 2012 or higher, the compatibility mode of the imported database will be set to the old version. AMT, however, expects that the database will NOT be in compatibility mode. Please ensure that the compatibility mode of such an upgraded database is switched off.