I have been asked to change the local admin password on a number of servers and would like to know if changing these passwords will "break" any of the services running? I know in the past when you changed the server admin password you had to go into each service on the server and change password on all of the the services the admin account was associated with (open the service properties and manually add in the new password) or the service would not start next time the server was booted. thx for any input, l

Hello, That depends if there is a service running under a user account. If yes then you will have problems (You already mentioned one of them). You have to check first if there services running under such accounts. Also, check that there is no application that is using these accounts with the old password. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights. Microsoft Student Partner 2010 / 2011 Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Security Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer: Security Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows 7, Configuring Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Designing and Providing Volume Licensing Solutions to Large Organizations Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Enterprise Administrator Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Server Administrator Microsoft Certified Trainer

Occassion1: Your computer is a Domain Server or Controller In Windows Server 2000/2003(R2)/2008(R2), if the machine is a Domain Controller, other users except for the domain administrator can logon to system. This is because local admin password doesnt have the authorization to login in Domain Controller for interactive logon is not allowed in the local policy. So, under this circumstance, you actually do not have a real local administrator. Similarly, you cannot reset local admin password. Just forget it, because you can still use the domain admin to access to your machine. Occassion2: Your computer is a Domain User When your computer with Windows Server 2000/2003(R2)/2008(R2) is a member of a special domain, not the domain administrator, you can access to your PC with 2 kinds of logon methodsdomain administrator logging and local admin or standard user logging. So, in this time, if you forgot local admin password, you can do the local administrator password reset as follows: Step1. Find a credible password reset tool through the Internet.Step2. Here I trust Windows Password Recovery Ultimate program and decide to use it. So first download, install, and run it into an accessible computer.Step3. Insert a blank CD/DVD/USB Flash Driver into that computer. (Note: not the locked one.)Step4. In the interface of Windows Password Recovery Ultimate program, click Burn icon to burn the program ISO image file into that blank device.Step5. Insert the newly burned CD/DVD/USB Flash Driver into the target computer, and set computer boot from CD/DVD/ or USB Flash Driver. Next, reboot the computer.Step6. Once the computer is restarted, an interface will show up. You can see two kinds of Windows Path: C:\WINDOWS and D:\WINDOWS listed there. You just choose the former one to change local administrator password, while the latter one is for domain admin password. Next click Reset Your Password Next. Now find your local admin account, click it, and then click Next. After finished, click Reboot to end all the whole process. Now you can use the newly changed local admin password to logon to your PC.

Also check any scheduled tasks which were created using that account.