Start > Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2005 > Configuration Tools > SQL Server Configuration Manager
b) Right click on the SQL server you want to add an account for and click Stop.
c) Once it has stopped, right click on it and open Properties. Go to the Advanced tab.
d) Under “Startup Parameters”, copy and paste that whole string to Notepad as a backup. Go back to the box and add the following right at the end of the string:
;–m
It should look like this:
Press OK when done. What this does is forces SQL to start in single user mode.
e) Now right click the SQL server you had stopped before and start it.
f) Now if you go to SQL Management Studio, it will error out. The only way to get into it is using sqlcmd. So open a command prompt and type:
sqlcmd
which should give you a “1>” prompt denoting line 1. If it gives you an error saying “Login failed for user ‘xxxxx’. Reason: Server is in single user mode. Only one administrator can connect at this time. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18461″, make sure all management consoles are closed and there are no other users logged in using it. Also go to your Windows services and stop all the following services:
SQL Server Agent
SQL Server FullText Search
SQL Server Integration Services
SQL Server Reporting Services
SQL Server VSS Writer
Only SQL Server and SQL Browser should be running. Try “sqlcmd” at the command prompt and it should let you through.
g) Now type the following to add your domain user account with admin privileges:
