A case-sensitive WHERE clause needs a COLLATE on the comparison, but the obvious version scans the index. A demo measures 286 reads against 2, and shows two fixes: keep the plain test beside it, or give the column a case-sensitive collation.
How to Do Case Insensitive Search? – Interview Question of the Week #267
Question: How to Do Case Insensitive Search?
Collations in SQL Server provide sorting rules, case, and accent sensitivity properties for your data.
SQL SERVER – Unable to Add Node – Could not find subkey System \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ MSSQLFDLauncher. Error code 0x851B0001
Running add node on Node2 failed with “Could not find subkey MSSQLFDLauncher”, error 0x851B0001. The cause was a missing Full-Text MSI in the setup media.
SQL SERVER – Full-Text Search Not Working For PDF Documents
A client stored PDF files in a VARBINARY(MAX) column, and Full-Text search could not find text in them. Here are all the steps I used in my lab to make it work.
Trigram Matching: Finding Similar Words With an N-Gram Table
Build trigram matching with GENERATE_SERIES and an indexed n-gram table, rank shared pieces, and compare spelling similarity with SOUNDEX.
Vector Search in SQL Server 2025 With VECTOR_DISTANCE
Use VECTOR_DISTANCE in SQL Server 2025 to rank small example vectors, compare cosine and euclidean distance, and plan larger searches.
Word Search Without Full-Text: Build a Word Index Table
LIKE with a leading wildcard reads the whole table. A small side table of words turns that scan into a quick lookup, and you do not need full-text installed.