title: SQL Server: "Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data..." issue, but can't change FreeTDS version
body: <p>I'm having a familiar issue when trying to <code>SELECT</code> columns of type <code>nvarchar</code> from my SQL Server Database using PHP:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library (such as ISQL) or ODBC version 3.7 or earlier.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I know that I can workaround this using <code>SELECT CAST(columnName as TEXT) as columnName from tableName</code>... but that's hacky and annoying. Plus <a href="http://www.adminer.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Adminer</a> won't work as long as there's this error, and I can't configure Adminer to <code>CAST</code> its column names.</p>
  
  <p>In <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/5414970/1603071">similar questions</a> and in the <a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mssql-query.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">PHP docs</a> many people have mentioned that you can fix this problem by changing the file <code>/etc/freetds.conf/</code>... but I'm on Windows, not *nix, so no such file exists. (I contacted support at my hosting company to confirm this.)</p>
  
  <p>Is there any way I can select <code>nvarchar</code> columns without having to add the annoying and tedious <code>CAST</code> boilerplate every time? And to get Adminer to work?</p>
  
  <p>Or is my only option to switch to a different driver than DB-Library?</p>