Script to change passwords in local services on Windows 2003

You should never use an account that's used for interactive logons to run a service with. Create a dedicated accout for each service with only the necessary permissions to run this service, and give it a complex password.
That said, you can use sc.exe to change the service password (and/or the service account) (note the space after "password="!).
Try to avoid the following characters in the password, as they may lead to unexpected results: < | > % ^ &
Note that the service will have to be restarted once the password has been changed.

@echo off
setlocal
sc config "Some Service" password= "TopSecret"
net stop "Some Service"
net start "Some Service"

Select allOpen in new window

The account that all services are usually bound to is the default administrator local account, or am I mistaken?

That being said, I want to change all the passwords using the local administrator to the desired password.


Also, I'm assuming to make that into a batch file and run it, correct?

Not at all; just check the "Logon as" column in services.msc. Unless you've installed your own services, the accounts used are Local Service, Local System, Network Service.
Yes, you can use the above as template.
But then again, since you might have to change the properties of some services anyway, why not go the full nine yards and change services using "Administrator" to dedicated accounts?

Just to make sure I understand this.

BACKUP EXEC is using Domain\Administrator (If I change the admin password, do I need to change the password in the services)

about 70% of the services are local system (I assume I need to change the password if I change the local server's password, correct?)

Some are NT AUTHORITY\LocalService or NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService (I assume I Don't need to touch these)

Is it best practice to have ALL the services running as Local System/Service/NetworkService

Or just all the Windows 2003 builtin services and have all the installed software (BACKUP EXEC) run on a dedicated account