TechTips: How to Get Site Collection Rights to a SharePoint 2007 Website Without Admin Rights to the Website

I had an interesting problem the other day when I went to administer a SharePoint 2007 Site that we had imported. We had set the site up on a new server on a different network and no one had rights to the website. I was a little worried because no one had admin rights so we couldn't add anyone to be an administrator. Well I found a good work-around that allowed me to add myself as a site collection administrator to the SharePoint 2007 website without having admin rights to the site itself. In this guide I will explain how to add yourself as an admin to a SharePoint 2007 website without having admin rights.

So to explain a little more about what happened, I have two MOSS SharePoint 2007 Server Farms, setup on two networks. Well each network differs a little with the users who are on them, when the users exported the site from Network1 and then imported it to Network2 the users of course aren't on Network2 the same way as on Network1. So no one had admin rights to the imported site and no one could administer the site or add users to groups, or give admin rights.

So quite a situation we found ourselves in, well there is a quick work around that I figured out, you can add yourself to the site collection admin group through central admin. The reason I could do this is that I have Farm Level permissions when I am logged onto the server and am inside central admin. So I was able to add myself to the Website as a site collection admin and then grant rights to others, since site collection administrators have God like permissions on websites in SharePoint 2007.

So to do this follow these steps:

Open Central Admin

Click Application Management Tab

Click Site Collection Administrators (SharePoint Site Management Section)

Click Site Collection Drop Down

Click Change Site Collection

Click Web Application Drop Down

Click Change Web Application

Click Web Application you want to change

Click OK

Type user name you want to add as site collection admin

Add secondary admin if you choose

Click OK

SharePoint 2007 will process the request and once it succeeds then the user you added will have admin rights to the SharePoint 2007 website you selected. Now this user can login to the website and make any administrative changes needed, including adding more users to be administrators to the website.

Well I hope this guide helps you to get your admin rights back on a SharePoint 2007 website that you didn't have admin rights to.