What user account would you recommend running the SQL Server Express 2008 services in a development environment?

Question

The SQL Server Express 2008 setup allow you to assign different user account for each service.

For a development environment, would you use a domain user, local user, N

Answer 1

It depends.

• Local System - Never, it's too high a privilege.
• Network Service - Perhaps, if you need to connect to network resources, but that's doubtful.
• Local Service - Probably the best choice, limited privileges, do not unlock network connections
• Local interactive user? Does it truly need to have login rights, or act as a user?
• Domain user? Goodness no, not unless you're accessing network drives from within it; if SQL runs amok then an attacker is authenticated against the domain.