How to change SQL Server Service Account ?

How to Change SQL Server Service Account ?

You can change service account anytime you would like after the installation however it would require you to restart SQL server services in order to take effect. I would recommend if you are performing such action in production system, look for brief outage.

There are multiple ways that you can change SQL Server Service account. Below are couple easy ways

a)      Using Service.msc – Not recommended

Click Start ----> Run ---> Type "Services.msc" Hit Enter

Fig 1. How to change SQL Server Service Account

 Find SQL server services and double click on server. Click on Log on as shown below and choose the service account that you would like to have SQL Services running under.

Fig 2. How to change SQL server service Account

b)      Using SQL Server Configuration Manager – Recommended

Click on Start, SQL Server configuration manager under SQL Server (2008, 2012, 2014) main folder.
Follow the direction shown below.

Fig 3. How to change SQL server service Account

Fig 4. How to change SQL Server service Account