Health Analyzer: Built-in accounts are used as application pool or service identities

Problem

You see the following warning appear in the Review problems and solutions list in SharePoint 2010 Central Administration:

Built-in accounts are used as application pool or service identities

Solution

1. Click on the warning title.  The warning description dialog appears:
   
2. The error description dialog identifies the cause of the problem: the DCLoadBalancer14, SPSearch4 and DCLauncher14 services are being run by a built-in account of the machine hosting the services.

   In this case, all of the services are running on a single application server, part of a small two-tier farm.  In multi-server farms where services may be running on other machines, you will need to perform this check on each server.

3. In Central Administration, go: Security > General Security > Configure service accounts.
4. From the service dropdown (upper one), select Windows Service - Document Conversions Load Balancer Service.  This is what is referred to in the warning as "DCLoadBalancer14(Windows Service). The page is updated to show the service components and the account running the service:
   
5. From the Select an Account for this component dropdown, select a managed account.  For this posting, the Contoso\sp_app account was used.
6. Click OK.
7. Navigate back to the Review problems and solutions page in Central Administration.
8. Click on the warning title, Built-in accounts are used as application pool or service identities:
   
9. Click Reanalyze Now.
10. Wait a minute or two, and then click on the warning title again.
11. Verify that DCLoadBalancer14(Windows Service) is no longer included in the warning:
    
12. Repeat the above steps, this time choosing Windows Service - Document Conversions Launcher Service.  This is what is referred to in the warning as "DCLauncher14(Windows Service)."
13. Verify that DCLauncher14(Windows Service) is no longer included in the warning:
    
14. Repeat the above steps, this time choosing Windows Service - SharePoint Foundation Search.  This is what is referred to in the warning as "SPSearch4(Windows Service)."
15. Verify that the warning, Built-in accounts are used as application pool or service identities, is no longer listed:
    
16. This concludes this procedure.

Summary

This posting presented steps for resolving the Health Analyzer warning, Built-in accounts are used as application pool or service identities.  For additional detail on this topic, see the references below.

References

• Built-in accounts are used as application pool or service identities (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
• Account permissions and security settings (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Plan administrative tasks in a least-privilege environment (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Initial deployment administrative and service accounts (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Service Account Suggestions for SharePoint 2010
• Health Analyzer – SharePoint 2010 Tracing (SPTraceV4)