32) Change the directory paths below to the none pooled hard drive as shown below and do not change any other default selections , click “Next” when finished.
33) On the “Instance Configuration” page this is the chance to name your SQL instance. It can be any combination of letters and numbers only (No spaces) or you can accept the default name. Change the directory path to your non pooled hard drive, click “Next” when finished.
NOTE 3 – If you decide to enter your own instance name and put anything other than letters or numbers (No Spaces) you will receive the below error.
34) On the “Server Configuration” page click on the “Use the same server account for all SQL Server Service” on the middle of the right side half of the below Server Configuration Page.
35) When the SQL Server credential box comes up click on the “Browse” Button.
36) In the “Select User or Group” box put the name of the account you want to use as a service account for your SQL Server instance (Since Home Server can only have up to 10 user accounts, 12 if you count the Administrator & Guest Account. I would recommend just using the built-in “Administrator” account since you are then not taking out of your pool of 10 user accounts allowed and the likely hood of changing the password on the “Administrator” account is very small).
37) Type the name of the user account you have decided to use (In this case we are using “Administrator” account, whatever account you decide to use insure that it has the administrative privileges necessary to do the job) then click the “Check Names” button to verify the account is good, Then click “Ok”.
38) You will then be prompted to put the password of the account in the below, put in the password and click “Ok”.
NOTE 4 – For those Windows Administrators out there as we all know this would be considered a security risk not having specific service accounts for the different SQL instance Databases. However this being a Home/Small business environment and being short on account resources this is more practical for this kind of environment.
39) Once the “Server Configuration” page returns click “Next” to continue.
40) On the “Database Engine Configuration” page in the “Account Provisioning” tab insure that “Windows Authentication” is chosen and that were it says “Specify SQL Server administrators” your account that you have chosen is highlighted.
A good overview for installing SQL Server and great to point out that while using a single service account isn’t ideal it can be acceptable for a scenario like this.
The only part I would change is that running SQL Server under an account with administrative privileges is opening up an attack vector and should be avoided no matter what the scenario. I appreciate this is only a home server but I would strongly recommend using a standard user account. A standard user account is of even greater importance given that each service is using a shared account.
Thanks Jason for your comments and overview of my article.
As pointed out in Note 4 in my article I do acknowledge not using another account for the service account would normally would not be advised. However, If the home server owner wants to create another account spefically for the SQL instance out of thier pool of 10 to replace the administrator account than they can do so.
But, if they need that 10th account for another user the administrator is still the better alternative than the guest account since the guest account is easier to be broken into if enabled and in some ways can be more dangerous than the Administrator account.
Again, thanks for the comments.