Postgres 8.3 fails to restart as a service on VMS and Server 2003

Question

Currently I am experiencing an issue with a Postgres 8.3 install wherein after a system restart a service is unable. The error message is as follows:

waiting for server to start...Access is denied. ............................................................could not start server

The command being executed is

pg_ctl.exe start -N "MyService" -D "C:\MyData"

I am logged in and executing this as an administrator. The issue originally happened after uninstalling and reinstalling postgres, the /data directory was removed as well.

Answer 1

If you opted to have the installer create a service account for you, you will need to:

1. Back up any existing data.
2. Uninstall Postgres.
3. Delete the service account. This is important!
4. Re-install Postgres.
5. Restore data from backup.

This is related to a password-reset issue in the installer script. In effect, the original service account simply needs to be cleared out when re-installing. This may be corrected in newer versions.