How is the guest account in SQL Server (2000, 2005, 2008) supposed to be used? What is it good for? I've tried enabling the account but I still can't get certain users to be able to refresh Excel 2007 PivotTables attached to views which I have given SELECT rights to GUEST.
What am I missing?
Guest is mostly just for allowing access to the database, using the Public role. Don't think it's meant to be something that users actually log in as...
When a database is created, the database includes the Guest user by default. Permissions granted to the Guest user are inherited by users that do not have a user account in the database.
It there for you to disable :)
You really shouldn't use it - grant rights explicitly.
http://sql-server-performance.com/Community/blogs/satya/archive/2007/07/31/126786.aspx