TIP - I changed the password for the domain account that SQL uses as startup account...

Due to your company's password policies, you might have to change the password of the domain account used as the startup account by SQL Server services.

Your changes will be reflected in the active directory. Next time, when SQL Server services try to start, they will fail to authenticate and will not start.

That is why it is imperative that once you change the startup account password in AD, you also change the password of the account in Configuration Manager.

Refer to this excellent article in BOL that talks about how to change it and what precautions to follow when you have to change the password in AD.

https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143746.aspx

A few days ago, I blogged about how to change the startup account of SQL Server 2005 services using Configuration Manager. You might want to refer to it as well.

https://blogs.msdn.com/sanchan/archive/2006/05/03/589580.aspx

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 06, 2006
  Our company has hundred of SQL Servers that we, the DBA group, has to support. These servers, a mix of SQL 2000 and SQL 2005, are started using domain account. We also have a security policy that forces us to change the password of this domain account every 90 days. It is not very practical to manually log on to each of these hundred servers every 90 days to use Configuration Manager or ENterprise Manager to type in the new password then restart SQL Server. Does Microsoft have some tool or an easier way to change the password ?
• Anonymous
  September 11, 2006
  Unfortunately, there is no easy way around this.
  
  You will have to manually achieve this.
  
  However, I would think that this is a very common requirement for many customers. I would suggest that you file a feature feedback at the following website.
  
  http://connect.microsoft.com/sqlserver
  
  All feedback logged into this website is reviewed by MS product teams.
  
  Hope that helps.
  
  Sanchan