Question

Somebody knows how to change the user account and authentication method sharepoint uses to connect to its content database?
It is now setup to connect using Windows Integrated Authentication but I want to change that to a local user account.

Is it even possible to do this?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

SharePoint supports both types of authentication in SQL Server:

1. Windows authentication (the default and preferred choice) – windows credentials are used to authenticate against the SQL server. SharePoint uses IIS which runs sites in an application pool worker process. You can change the credentials for a Web application pool here:

   Central Administration > Operations > Service Accounts

2. SQL authentication – a username/password combination is created and stored in SQL server. When you create a content database you can choose SQL authentication and then provide the username/password (which you have already created in SQL). If you want to change the auth type of an existing database, you can detach it by checking the remove option on the database settings page (it removes the database from SharePoint but does not delete the actual data). Then you can re-attach the existing database and choose a different auth type. You can manage content databases here:

   Central Administration > Application Management > Content Databases