How to find User Login Password in SQL Server?
Question
Monday, February 25, 2013 12:22 PM
Hi All,
Earlier one of my team member has created a user login and password but forgot the password after few days and now we need to know the password of that login. Some of the application are using this login so we can delete and create a new login with the same name hence is there any possibility or script to find out the password of the existing login.
Note: The login is not 'sa'
Please let us know if any additional information is required.
Really grateful to your interest, time & suggestions on this.
Regards,
Kalyan
Learners Curiosity Never Ends
All replies (10)
Monday, February 25, 2013 1:01 PM ✅Answered
IF its a sql login and you have access to the application servers, you could look for it in connection strings on those.
Monday, February 25, 2013 12:52 PM
There is no way to find the password. Your only option is to reset the password.
David Dye My Blog
Monday, February 25, 2013 12:54 PM
But I believe it is not possible if we don't know the password.
Regards,
Kalyan
Learners Curiosity Never Ends
Monday, February 25, 2013 1:04 PM
Hello Kalyan,
The only way i could see is drop and recreate the login with a new password as you have your sa login with you.
Best Regards Sorna
Monday, February 25, 2013 1:28 PM
A sysadmin )a login which has sysadmin permission) can rest the password.
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Monday, February 25, 2013 1:29 PM
But I believe it is not possible if we don't know the password.
Regards,
Kalyan
Learners Curiosity Never Ends
You can login as 'sa' or another system/security administrator account and change the password for login, you do not need to know old password:
you can change password using below T-SQL:
ALTER LOGIN [LoginName] WITH PASSWORD=N'NewStrongPassword'
GO
This will break you existing application as they won't be able to connect to database after you reset the password. You will need to reconfigure the applications to use the new password.
Or as suggested by DBArrr - check the connection strings or any configuration files available in existing applications to retrieve the password.
- Vishal
Friday, January 17, 2014 12:09 PM
Hi Kalyan,
All of the above answers are correct. If you are using (i hope not) SQL2000 it's possible to retrieve your password, however it requires you to snif your network traffic :).
So your options are;
1) Search your config file and look for the connection string
2) Reset the password
Thanks,
Teun
Friday, August 29, 2014 5:11 PM | 1 vote
Best Answer>>>>
http://v-consult.be/2011/05/26/recover-sa-password-microsoft-sql-server-2008-r2/
Thanks
Sunday, November 16, 2014 8:07 PM
thanks @Ranjan Singhh your link is very helpful :)
Friday, November 17, 2017 3:13 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8k4eQhKlBw - I have not tried this, but the poster seems competent. This seems to show you a way to change your <g class="gr_ gr_107 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="107" id="107">sa</g> password without having to do anything else.