Changing the Windows authentication users allowed to access SQL Server

Question

This seems like a question that should be common enough, but I can't find anything on it. Two questions, really:

• How can I determine which account(s) have Windows authentication access to an instance of SQL Server 2008?
• Can I change that set of users without being able to log in to the SQL Server instance?

Thanks very much in advance!

Answer 1

The sys.server_principals view contains all the logins with access to the instance. You can filter by type U and G to get just Windows logins and Windows groups.

You can use the the T-SQL commands CREATE LOGIN, ALTER LOGIN and DROP LOGIN to manage logins without using the GUI. There are similar commands available for database users.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188786.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189751.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173463.aspx