We had a call in for a third party to access a SQL server - the people who set the server up had not long left the Company and didn't leave any passwords for us.
Logging onto the server was fine. Opening up SSMS was the problem. No Permissions.
One of my colleagues found this useful nugget of information for SQL 2008 and above (I don't know how far above - the article said 2008 and above and the edition we have is SQL 2008 R2).
Using PSEXEC (Sysinternals) with the following syntax and an elevated CMD prompt you gain access to SSMS
# PsExec -s -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\<path-to-Ssms.exe>\Ssms.exe"
(Path will vary depending on version!)
PsExec will run interactively (-i) using the system account (-s).
Kudos obviously goes to the creator of the original link:
http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2682/recover-access-to-a-sql-server-instance/
