How to Save SSRS Install with No Effective Admin User

Question

I'm having a problem with an SSRS installation on a machine that is not connected to a domain. According to the documentation, all users in the local Administrators group are supposed to have admin access to the report site when the server is first set up. In my experience this is not the case: only the local Administrator account has access; other users in the Administrators group do not.

In the machine in question, the local Administrator account was disabled when I installed SSRS 2012 Developer Edition. When I discovered this, I re-enabled the account and now I can access the reporting site as the Administrator, but it appears that I still don't have administrative access to the site. For example, when I try to grant other users access, I get the following error message:

The permissions granted to user 'THOR\Administrator' are insufficient for performing this operation. (rsAccessDenied) I'm concerned that I have an SSRS installation with no admin user (my own account is a member of the local administrators group, but that as noted above that doesn't give me access to the report server). As a result, it appears that the server isn't usable. Is there a way to fix this without reinstalling the server?

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Paul Keister http://www.pjpm.biz

Answer 1

Update: I found a solution to this problem quite by accident: instead of using Internet Explorer, I accessed the site using a custom WinForms application with an embedded WebBrowser control. Using the WebBrowser control, I found that the Administrator user did have full permission and I was able to configure the site. I would be interested in any thoughts on why this solution worked. Could it be the I'm having a conflict with a browser plugin?

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Paul Keister http://www.pjpm.biz

Answer 2

Hi Paul,

In Reporting Services, all the users in the administrator group have the System Administratro (System-evel) and the Content Manager (Item-level) roles in the report server by default. In this issue, the issue should be caused by the User Access Control (UAC) feature of the operating system. To avoid this issue, please right click the Internet Explorer, and click "Run as adminstrator" to launch the browser. Meanwhile, please also add the http://<Server Name> URL to the trusted sites list of the IE. For the detailed steps, please see:
Configure a Report Server for Local Administration on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Regards,
Mike Yin

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Mike Yin
TechNet Community Support