renamed a Windows server after MSSQL 2005 was installed

  • We recently renamed a windows server after installing MSSQL 2005. I have two problems and they both have to do with the windows-level groups that 2005 creates.

    1. The windows-level groups each have the old server name embedded in the group name. Is this going to be a problem? In other words, does any process or function calculate the name of the group and would thus calculate the "wrong" name because the old server name is embedded in the group name instead of the new/current server name?

    2. The database has three of those windows-level groups added into the Security -> Logins section, two of which have sysadmin. These groups are listed in the database like OLDSERVERNAME\SQLServer2005MSFTEUser$OLDSERVERNAME$MSSQLSERVER. When I try to do:

    EXEC master..xp_logininfo @acctname = 'OLDSERVERNAME\SQLServer2005MSFTEUser$OLDSERVERNAME$MSSQLSERVER',@option = 'members'

    I get an error because it can't find OLDSERVERNAME to check the group membership. So it looks like I need to drop those three groups from the database and add them back so it can point to the correct (new) server name.

    2a. Are there special permissions (besides sysadmin on two of them) or anything else special about any of these three groups that deleting and re-adding correctly would mess up?

  • I've found one privilege so far:

    in master, EXECUTE on sp_fulltext_getdata granted to the MSFTEUser group.

  • Here is what I did for those accounts:

    In Windows - Local Users & Groups, I renamed each group to reflect the correct server. I then dropped the logins from SQL Server and recreated the logins by adding the groups back in.

    Now the groups show correctly and don't have any issues.

    Make sure you validate the privileges of each account first. The SQLUser and SQLAgent groups should have sysadmin privileges and the MSFTE group doesn't have any privileges (as far as i could tell).

    Jeffrey Williams
    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

    ― Charles R. Swindoll

    How to post questions to get better answers faster
    Managing Transaction Logs

Viewing 3 posts - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply