Three Ways to Reset SQL Password!

In our life and work, these follows often happen: I’ve forgotten the sa password for SQL Server, what can I do? How to reset or change the forgotten SQL password? Don’t worry about that, here I will give you some methods to recover it.

Method 1. Change SQL password from the command line

1. Open a command prompt window by selecting “Start“–>”Run…”, and typing “cmd.exe” in the “Run” dialog box.
2. Change to the directory in which the MSSQL or MSDE utilities are stored (this is usually C:MSDEbinn, C:Program FilesMSSQLbinn, etc.).
3. Type the following command where <newpassword> is the password you have chosen.osql -U sa -P ”" -Q ”sp_password NULL,<newpassword>,sa”

Method 2. Change sa password on the Server

Set up SQL Server services log on under a different user account

Important, If Microsoft Full-Text Search is installed on the computer, do not change the MSSQLServer account information in the Services application in Control Panel. Although the Search service is assigned to the local system account, it also tracks the MSSQLServer service account. You must change the MSSQLServer service account in SQL Server Enterprise Manager for the Microsoft Search service to stay synchronized.

Method 3. Reset sql password with MS SQL Server Password Unlocker

If the above methods do not provide enough security for you, download MS SQL Server Password Unlocker. MS SQL Server Password Unlocker is a sql password recovery tool for Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2005/2008. With this MS SQL Server Password Unlocker, you can either try to find the original password or reset SQL password to a new one.