Recently due to transposition errors ( I typed it in wrong,) i had to unlock the SA password on one of our servers (in my defence i didn't even know this database existed.)

Good thing with having an all Microsoft solution is that local admins ,if set up correctly, have access to sql servers as sysadmin.

To enable this behaviour though you must add the local admin to the user group SQLServer2008MSSQLUser$<servername>$<instance>. Which should already exist. A word of warning when I say local admin I mean local admin, not domain users with local admin rights I mean <servername>\<Administrator UserName>.

Now to log in using windows authentication using the local admin you must run the server in "single user mode.” To do this stop the SQL Server service. Add -m as a startup parameter than start the service.

You will now be able to login into to the sql server using enterprise manager and windows authentication. Once logged in unlock the SA user (you will need to change its password to unlock,). Once SA is unlocked restart the sql service without the -m parameter and log on as SA.

I would recommended at this point making a backup SA user and storing its details securely.