>>Situation: a client without IT staff, several timezones away, has SQL server installed by third party. They have created an account for me, and the same account runs the SQL service... but doesn't have any rights inside SQL. Can't create a database, can't give myself any extra rights. Even tried to run SSMS as admin, no good. Brief googling on "sql 2008 sa password reset" (even though that's not what I wanted - I'd rather not touch that password) gives this:
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>>http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2009/08/04/sql-server-forgot-the-password-of-username-sa/
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>>Steps may be a bit confusing; good that I read the linked article as well (how to run SQL in single user mode), but it works. The syntax of "prepend a -m; to the parameters and don't add any spaces" is a bit weird, and the need to stop the SQLAgent service, but so it is.
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>>This has saved me from yet another day of three way communication (me-client-their IT contractor).
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>From SQL Server POV SQLAgent is one of users

And in case of single-user run, it is the first admin, and in that kind of context, there can be only one. Stopping the agent before restarting the server is one of the key moves in this dance.