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Changing service account usernames and passwords in MOSS and WSS 3.0

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How to change a SharePoint service username account and service password is documented here: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838. However, the wording in the steps would lead you to believe you are only changing/updating the password:

"Update the password for the account that is used by the Central Administration application pool. To do this, follow these steps:
a. On all servers in the server farm, open a command prompt, type the following line, and then press ENTER: cd %commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Bin
b. On the server that hosts the Central Administration Web site, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER: stsadm –o updatefarmcredentials –userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword
c. On all other servers in the server farm, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER: stsadm –o updatefarmcredentials –userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword -local
d. Restart Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0. To do this, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER: iisreset /noforce"

To prove you can change the username as well I kicked off my VPC.... Here are a few screen shots to show you it working :)

SharePoint Central Admin App Pool – Before updating username and password: update_user1_small

STSADM.exe command run: update_user2_small Note: IIS did moan a little when I tried to iisrest /noforce - once I did a full iisreset everything restarted with out error.

SharePoint Central Admin App Pool – After updating username and password:

update_user3_small

Remember never ever under any circumstances attempt to change app pool accounts directly within IIS!!! This is what STSADM is for :)

 

Over all changing usernames and passwords of SharePoint service accounts is a fairly important feature of STSADM; especially as company security department policies dictate not just changing passwords periodically but usernames as well.

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