Unicode Compression (Access 2000 SR1)

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I have an Access front-end with linked tables from a MS SQL Server 2000 back-end.
I run Total Access Analyzer and it suggests that I use “UNICODE Compression” on all my text fields – in Access.

Is that necessary with a SQL Server back-end? Is there actually any effect on the data?

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No – especially if you aren’t using any nvarchar fields in your SQL back-end. It just adds overhead to the processing of data. There is also a significant performance penalty in using UNICODE with Access 2000 – we’ve seen 4 and 5 to 1 drops in response time by just changing data types to be non-UNICODE. It certainly does have it’s place if you are dealing with text in languages that do not use a Roman alphabet, but otherwise it isn’t necessary.

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Thanks.

I already changed all the data types (in SQL Server) from nvarchar to varchar. So I didn’t think that the Access Unicode Compression would make a difference. That’s just one of the quirks about using Access as a front-end to SQL Server.

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