The Automatic ANSI to OEM conversion option enables DB-Library to convert a character set from OEM to ANSI when communicating with Microsoft® SQL Server™ from the client, and from ANSI to OEM when communicating with the client from SQL Server. The Automatic ANSI to OEM conversion option is selected by default.
If the client code page is different from code page on the server running SQL Server, then the character set should be converted. Microsoft Windows NT® and Microsoft Windows® 95/98 have both an ANSI and an OEM character set, which are set during installation. For U.S. English, Windows NT and Windows 95 use the default ANSI character set, code page 1252, and the default OEM character set, code page 437. Windows 3.x runs as an extension to MS-DOS, and only has the default ANSI character set of code page 1252. The Windows NT Console is internally Unicode, which behaves like an OEM character set.
If the Automatic ANSI to OEM conversion option is disabled, conversion of characters is disabled for all connections. However, when the Automatic ANSI to OEM conversion option is enabled, conversion occurs when communicating from:
Any clients running Windows NT or Windows 95/98 are considered ANSI clients. Console-based applications, such as the isql utility, are considered OEM clients.
A server with the default code page of 12xx, such as 1252, is considered to be an ANSI server; with any other code page, it is considered to be an OEM server (for example, code page 850 or 437).
Although default code page values exist for both ANSI and OEM, the client’s current operating system code page determines conversion values when characters are translated.