ACC2000: Cannot Sort Arabic or Japanese Text in Descending Order

When you try to sort a table that contains double-byte text (for example, Japanese) or text in a right-to-left language (for example, Arabic) in descending order, the records are not sorted, and you do not receive an error message.

When you then try to close the table after such an unsuccessful attempt to sort the data, you receive the following error message and you cannot close the table.

To work around this behavior, modify the table design and create an index on the field to be sorted. In order to close the table window, first acknowledge the error message that is mentioned in the "Symptoms" section. Then, switch the table to Design view and close the table.

This problem has been fixed in the latest edition of the Jet Service Pack. For additional information about how to obtain the latest version of the Jet 4.0 database engine, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Steps to Reproduce the Problem

1.	Activate Arabic language support for your version of Windows and for Microsoft Office.
2.	In Access 2000, create a new database.
3.	Create a new table and add a Text field.
4.	Type some Arabic text in a few records.
5.	In one record, type three Arabic words that, with the two blank spaces between the words, form a string of 21 characters. For example, type seven Arabic letters, press the spacebar, type four Arabic letters, press the spacebar, and then type eight Arabic letters.
6.	Click the Sort Ascending button. Note that the records are sorted correctly.
7.	Click the Sort Descending button. Note that nothing happens. That is, the records are not sorted.