Specifying credentials for the Acronis service

Acronis Backup uses the Acronis Managed Machine Service, also referred to as the agent service. When installing Acronis Backup, you need to specify the account under which the service will run.

You can either create a dedicated user account or specify an existing account of a local or domain user; for example: .\LocalUser or DomainName\DomainUser

By default, the setup program will create a new dedicated account for the service.

When to choose an existing account?

The new account fits most cases. You must specify an existing account when installing the product on a domain controller in an Active Directory domain (provided that the product supports Windows Server operating systems). This restriction does not apply to ordinary members of a domain.

Privileges for the account

The account (whether existing or newly created) is given the following privileges:

• The account is included in the Backup Operators group.

  The new account for the service is also included in the Administrators group. For security reasons, the setup program does not automatically include the existing account in this group.

• The account is granted the Full Control permission on the folder %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis (in Windows XP and Server 2003, %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Acronis) and on its subfolders.
• The account is granted the Full Control permission on registry keys in the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis.
• The account is assigned the Log on as a service, Adjust memory quotas for a process, Replace a process level token, and Modify firmware environment values user rights.

Tips for further usage

• The new account has the name Acronis Agent User.
• If the machine is part of an Active Directory domain, make sure that the domain's security policies do not prevent the account (whether existing or newly created) from having the above listed user rights.
• After the installation, avoid specifying a different account for the service. Otherwise, the product may stop working. If you must specify a different account, make sure that the new account is granted the above listed privileges.