Update Collation of all fields in database on the fly

Question

We recently moved our database from our SQL Server 2005 server to our SQL Server 2008 server. Everything moved over fine, however now we are finding that we are getting col

Answer 1

One option is to use a program like Red Gate SQL Compare (I'm sure there's others too). With it you can generate script files for your schema with collation included (make sure to turn that on in the options), then do a search/replace in the files updating it to the new collation, then re-compare them back to your actual database.

At this point SQL Compare will be able to apply those changes (or save the changes to a script file if you prefer), and your existing columns are all fixed.

In theory you could do all of this while still under the trial period, though I would suggest it's a good tool to keep around as it makes many SQL tasks easier!