I just started a new job and on their Exchange 2007 server I have discovered that their exchange services run as either the Local System or Network Service instead of having a specific Active Directory account assigned. I have never seen these services configured to run under these accounts, they have always been assigned a specific account with all the appropriate rights needed. Would appreciate any input on this, if this will cause any negative effects, change the default behavior of exchange, etc?? Thank youPhilip T

All Exchnage 2007 services run either under local system or network. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998342(v=exchg.80).aspx

Thank you for the reply but it has been my experience with Exchange 2007 to always use a domain admin account to run these services. I understand what the Microsoft documentation states but I would like a real world answer as to if there are any downsides to running these services with these local and network services accounts? 3 difference companies that I worked at have all assigned some domain admin account to run these services. thanks. Philip T

There is no requirement to run these under domain admin account, it was in previous older versions of Exchange. Yes, you can if you really want to, but not sure I undersand the reason. If Exchange is deployed in a split permission model, then using domain admin account is not an option right?

That answers my question. Again, I personally have never seen Exchange 2007 run its services using these accounts. If theres no reason to change them then I will leave them alone. thanks. Philip T

On Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:09:55 +0000, phil7269 wrote: >That answers my question. Again, I personally have never seen Exchange 2007 run its services using these accounts. If theres no reason to change them then I will leave them alone. Leave them alone. They haven't needed a "service account" since Exchange 2000. If you saw Exchange services running with "user" accounts it was a gross misconfiguration (or a version of Exchange server prior to Exchange 2000). --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

On Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:09:55 +0000, phil7269 wrote: >That answers my question. Again, I personally have never seen Exchange 2007 run its services using these accounts. If theres no reason to change them then I will leave them alone. Leave them alone. They haven't needed a "service account" since Exchange 2000. If you saw Exchange services running with "user" accounts it was a gross misconfiguration (or a version of Exchange server prior to Exchange 2000). --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP