Collation Recommendation

I work for an international company and we have to join between databases in different locations. I want a situation where the collations are the same so that we don't have to worry about stating which collation to use in cross server queries. Can someone tell me what we shoud choose. We can't right now change the system to use unicode. If we choose windows collation then does it take the collation of the os on the server? Will we have a problem if different servers have different Windows collations? Is it better to choose a Sql collation and make sure everyone chooses the same one? Thanks for your help.What other DB platforms/collations will you be working with?
Do you have the ability/authority to dictate the collation used at these other sites?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'Windows collation'. When creating a new DB in SQL2k, you have the ability to set the code page/collation for that db and 'windows collation' is not an option.|||I can dictate what collation the other servers should use. When you setup the Sql Server you can choose either windows collation and the sort order or choose a Sql Collation and the sort order. What I want to know is whether or not it will simplify things to choose the Sql Collation. It seems to me that if I use the windows collation I may run into problems if the windows collation of the os is different on the other servers.|||Unless I have a reason not to, I use the default (SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS). The 1252 character set, case insensitive, dictionary order, accent sensitive.

Being an international company, though , you may wish to use the 850 (multi-linqual) character set, but I'd stick with case insensitive, dictionary order, accent sensitive, unless you have another reason not to.

Unicode would be preferable, but you've already mentioned that you cannot use it.|||Hi!

I am looking for help concerning collation problem, so if You can help me I would be thankful...

I am changing from sql7 to sql2k and i would like to be sure i have maintaned the same sort order etc. i had in sql7:

Unicode data sorting
-------
Locale ID = 33280

case sensitive

Sort Order Description
----------------------------------------
Character Set = 4, cp1250
Code page 1250
Sort Order = 80, bin_cp1250
Binary Sort Order for the Code Page 1250 Character Set

Characters, in Order
----------------------------------------
! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
@. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _
` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~
_
_



So i think in sql2k i should set:

Polish_BIN

i need to have bin sorting and polish letters.

on collation list:

select * from ::fn_helpcollations()

there is not available:

sql_latin1_general_cp1250_bin

Please let me know if i am right or not.

Thanks in advance

by the way anybody knows how to get the list of ordered characters used by the sql server 2k same as the one extracted from the sql7. standard procedure sp_helpsort was used to receive the result at the start of this message, but for sql2k gives slightly different answer as:

only: Polish, binary sort

?