Change Password Process for Managed Service Accounts in SharePoint 2010

The process of changing the password can be categorized in two sections

• The default content access account password change (for e.g. prodfarmadmin or spsfarmadmin)
• All other registered managed service account for other operations in farm

The steps for default content access account password change are as follows

To change the password for the default content access account

1. Go to Security –> Configure managed accounts
2. You can edit the settings for any managed account by simply clicking the edit icon associated with the account you wish to modify.

3.     Then on Managed Account page click check radio button Change password now

4. Once the new password entered click on ok

5. Then click on Application Management on left navigation of CA

6. On Application Management page click on Managed Service Application and on Managed service application page click on Prod Search Service Application for which you want to change the default content access account.
7. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.
8. On the Manage Service Applications page, click the Search service application for which you want to change the default content access account.
9. On the Search Service Application: Search Administration page, in the System Status section, locate the default content access account, which is in the form Domain\UserName.
10. Click the default content access account name. The Default Content Access Account dialog box appears.
11. Type the new password in the Password box, and then click OK.

The process for changing password for all other registered managed service account for other operations in farm is same as above just repeat from step 1 to 4 for all account.

Note: Once the operation is performed it requires 10 minutes of down time as require doing iisreset.