steve@thesqlguy.com

I am a Microsoft certified SQL Server expert with over 20 years of experience. Creating secure, reliable, and fast data structures is my passion, and I want to share my expertise with you.

I am passionate about sharing my experience with the community, making information available and seamless to the world. Check out my blog and look for my various articles across the internet.

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SQLServerCentral Article

6 steps to a more secure SQL database

Security is often something people think about only after they have had a problem. Given that the average cost of a data breach is $3.92 million (SecurityIntelligence 2019) and ransomware attacks have increased 97% over the past 2 years (PhishMe 2019), the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" approach can clearly be catastrophic. Here […]

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2019-10-07

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Question of the Day

Fixing the Error

On SQL Server 2025, I have a database that has this collation: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. I decide I want to run this code:

SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C*3068 and good night', '*') AS 'A Classic';
I get this error:Msg 9844, Level 16, State 4, Line 24 The char/varchar input type uses an unsupported collation. Only a UTF8 collation is supported with char/varchar input type in UNISTR function.What is the easiest way to fix this error?

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