The sa account is created during the installation process and the sa account has full rights in the SQL Server environment. By default, the sa password is blank (NULL), unless you change the password when you run the MSDE Setup program. To conform with the best security practices, you must change the sa password to a strong password at the first opportunity.
How to verify if the SA password is blank
1. On the computer that is hosting the instance of MSDE to which you are connecting, open a command prompt window.
2. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
osql -U sa
This connects you to the local, default instance of MSDE by using the sa account. To connect to a named instance installed on your computer type:
osql -U sa -S servername\instancename
You are now at the following prompt:
Password:
Press ENTER again. This will pass a NULL (blank) password for sa.
If you are now at the following prompt, after you press ENTER, then you do not have a password for the sa account:
1>
We recommend that you create a non-NULL, strong password to conform with security practices.
However, if you receive the following error message, you have entered an incorrect password. This error message indicates that a password has been created for the sa account:
"Login Failed for user 'sa'."
