How to change the user account and the password in SharePoint Portal Server 2003

You must update Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 after you make one or more of the following changes:

• You change your password for an account after your password expires.
• You reset the password for an account.
• You change the account that SharePoint Portal Server 2003 uses.

Before you change an account, you must first verify that the account is used for the CentralAdminAppPool application pool account in SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

If the account is used for the CentralAdminAppPool application pool account, you must update the account and the password in SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

Note By default in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, the account that is used for the configuration database administration account is also used for the CentralAdminAppPool application pool account.

Important You must update the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 configuration in the order that the steps in this article are presented. Do this to prevent possible failures with the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 server.

Note You can use the Central Admin Farm Account settings page instead of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) to change the CentralAdminAppPool application pool account credentials. However, the current account credentials must be valid, and the Central Admin Farm Account settings page must open correctly. We strongly recommend that you follow the steps in this article to avoid possible disruption of access to SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

How to change the application pool account

To change the CentralAdminAppPool application pool account, follow these steps.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003

1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. In the Internet Information Services management console, expand the tree view.
3. Expand Application Pools.
4. Right-click CentralAdminAppPool, and then click Properties.
5. Click the Identity tab, and then click Configurable.
6. In the User name text box, type the user name in the following format:
   domain\user_name
   In this format, domain is the name of your domain, and user_name is the name of the new account.
7. In the Password text box, type the new password, and then click OK.
8. Click OK.
9. Right-click CentralAdminAppPool, and then click Recycle.
10. Exit IIS.

How to change the configuration database administration account in SharePoint Portal Server 2003

To change the configuration database administration account, follow these steps.

1. Open the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for the server_name Web page, where server_name is the computer name of your SharePoint Portal Server 2003 server.
2. In the Server Configuration area, click Configure server farm account settings.
3. In the Configuration Database Administration Account area, click Specify account.
4. In the User name (DOMAIN\user name) text box, type the user name of the account.
5. In the Password text box and in the Confirm Password box, type the account password.
6. Click OK.

After you change the configuration database administration account, you must also change the default content access account.

How to change the default content access account

To change the default content access account, follow these steps.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003

1. Open the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for server_name page.
2. In the Server Configuration area, click Configure server farm account settings.
3. In the Default Content Access Account area, click to select the Specify account check box.
4. In the User name (DOMAIN\user name) text box, type the user name of the account.
5. In the Password text box and in the Confirm Password box, type the account password.
6. Click OK.

Note Under some circumstances, you may receive unexpected search results after you change the default access account.
For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

How to change the portal site application pool identity

To change the portal site application pool identity, follow these steps.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003

1. Open the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for server_name page.
2. In the Server Configuration section, click Configure server farm account settings.
3. In the Portal Site Application Pool Identity section, click Change account settings.
4. If you want to update the user name, type the name of the new user account in the User name (DOMAIN\user name) text box.
5. Type the account password in the Password text box and in the Confirm Password box.
6. Click OK.

After you complete the steps that are listed in this article, all the services and the application pools are updated and then restarted. These steps automatically update the registry entries that SharePoint Portal Server 2003 uses.

You must complete the steps in this article on each server in your farm that is running SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Although you can write a script to manually update the services, doing this may cause a timing issue to occur. The timing issue may prevent Search and Gathering processes from being completed successfully..