>>It's invalid for VFP because VFP does not support expressions in the ORDER BY.
>>It's unnecessary for SQL Server if column is case insensitive.
>
>I mixed up two context here. The UPPER() was used as an additional field which can then be used later with an order clause.
>I will remove the UPPER() code at the ordering level as it is not used, as you say, in SQL Server, as is.

When columns have case insensitive collate, comparison and sorting is case insensitive as well already.