WTF: UAC and rsAccessDenied error in Windows 2008 R2 (x64)

Here is today’s WTF, imaging you spend whole day installed SSRS and finally start creating your first report service, but when you are trying to deploy it you keep receiving error message regarding denied accessing, it is really confused me.

This is not the worst part yet, if you google the error type [rsAccessDenied] you can find the solution is accessing http://localhost/reports/ and assign proper user roles to the report service login user. But when login http://localhost/reports/ in Windows 2008 R2, you can see only a blank home page without any settings you can work with. This is because UAC blocked the dynamic content in this page. Even I added the URL to trusted site list, you can still only see a blank page, which really piss me off.

To overcome this issue, you have to turn off UAC and restart the computer, and then access http://localhost/reports/ you can see all the functionality you need.

Followed are some tips installing SSRS 2008 x64 on Windows 2008 R2 x64

First thing first I strongly suggest installing VS2008, SQL SERVER 2008 in the default path, otherwise you will suffer installation failure soon or later, especially for the Business Intelligence Development Studio.

Another thing you need know is Report Service is no longer relying on IIS. Even you stopped IIS service you can still access Report Service from URL http://localhost/Reports and http://localhost/ReportService.

Assuming you have already installed SSRS 2008 with SQLSERVER 2008, next step is configure database connection. To do this go to Microsoft SQL Server 2008/Configuration Tools/Reporting Service Configuration Manager, then click database page and connect the database server you want. The reporting service manager will create two databases ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB for itself.

Another thing you may need to know is the SSRS report web service asmx URLs are:
http://localhost/ReportServer/ReportService2005.asmx (to manage the service)
http://localhost/ReportServer/ReportExecution2005.asmx (to create reports)
Even you installed MSSQL2008 the services are still named 2005, isn't it kind of WTF. :)