• Per BOL, the column behavior is set when the column is created. The setting in place when you insert/select/update doesn't affect it. That might be affecting your tests, Jack.

    On the subject of Like and wildcards, it isn't whether the wildcard precedes the string or not, it's whether you include spaces in the literal string or not.

    Example:

    'a ' -- 3 spaces

    is like 'a%', and like '%a%', and like '%a'

    It's because of how SQL Server compares strings. They are equal if they would be equal without trailing spaces.

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