We need to access a MS SQL 2000 database with unicode data in nvarchar fields from PHP (on IIS). Unfortunately PHP's MSSQL does not support this. Unfortunately we cannot use a different driver (like ADODB) - we're stuck with the application (Interspire KM) and can't rewrite it. Is there anyway to get PHP's MSSQL driver to talk to Unicode databases?
The error message when we do UPDATEs is: Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library (such as ISQL) or ODBC version
Googling for a solution turns up the suggestion that we revert to varchar. However, if we do this, special characters (like "ü") get stored incorrectly and the search does not work so this is not really a workable option.