Report Server Windows Service Problem

Hello,

I am my department's Sys Admin and a relativelty Noobie when it comes to SQL server. So I recently Installed SQL Server 2005 on a Win2003 Server. During install I set my domain account as the service account login. After the DB and Web Application were setup and running good I realized that the SQL service accounts were logging in as my domain account. Not a good thing right? So in SQL Server Configuration Manager I changed the services from logging on as my domain account to the local system account instead.

Enter the problem: now I notice in application event viewer the Report Server Windows Service is erroring every minute. The error reads "Report server windows service cannot connect to the report server database." Im sure this was caused by me changing what account the report server service logs in as and local system account not having appropriate permissions. So what account should the report server windows service log in as? I see where to change the windows report service identity in Configure Report Server but I am not able to backup an encryption key? Thanks in advance!

If everything is installed locally I'd suggest you use LocalSystem although the setup suggests you use a domain account. Use the Reporting Services Configuration Manager (found under the Configuration Tools program group in the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 program group) to reset the Windows Service account. Since you don't have a backup of the encryption key, you may need to delete the encrypted content (Encryption Keys section) before you can reset the account. The following info may help. The moral of this story is that you should always back up the encryption key (you can use the config utility) as a last step after RS is set up.