Impact of renaming “sa” account on SQL Server 2008

 

Error: 912, Severity: 21, State: 2

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed 

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Workgroup

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Developer

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard

This problem was first corrected in SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1

Cause:

The upgrade process includes a script to create the SP_Syspolicy_Create_Purge_job stored procedure. The procedure creates the syspolicy_purge_history job and hardcodes the owner of the job to be the sa account. Because the sa account is renamed, the job creation fails.

Workaround:  recreate the sa account

Reference:  FIX: Error message when you try to upgrade an instance of SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008: "Wait on the Database Engine recovery handle failed. Check the SQL Server error log for potential causes"