Mike, I agree and I'm finally getting my CIO's support for local admin rights on sql boxes -- our chief network admin still seems cool to this idea but is being overruled.  My reason for bringing this up here is that the windows utilities that started this thread are quite often not useful unless you have these kinds of rights.

I'd like to end my aspect of this thread as I have a similar one now over under the sql 2005 administration forum.

thanks,

Randy