You've explained that you don't have the SA password and you're not an administrator. In that case, you're going to have to hack your way around it.
See Think Your Windows Administrators Don’t Have Access to SQL Server 2008 by Default? Think Again. by Argenis Fernandez.
That post explains how to impersonate the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
login using PsExec
(or creating a Windows Scheduled Task running under the SYSTEM
account) to create a new login for yourself. Then, you can log in via that new login, and grant your Windows account SA permissions.
SQL Server Management Studio Startup
When Microsoft's SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) starts it tries to connect the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) of Microsoft:
http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/MicrosoftRootAuthority.crl
The underlying .NET components of SSMS are trying to contact the Certificate Revocation List and SSMS is unable to do so. This slows down the overall loading procedure. (15 seconds per certificate apparently)
Ok so here is what is happening. SSMS has a high percentage of managed code, all of this code is signed when we ship it. At start up (if this setting is checked) the .Net Runtime tries to contact crl.microsoft.com to ensure that the cert is valid(there were some fake certs issued in Microsoft’s name a while back so this is a very valid concern). If there is no internet connection or there is a problem contacting the certificate revocation list server then this will delay SSMS startup.
Reference: FAQ, Why does SSMS take 45s to start up? (MSDN Blog)
One issue that can cause this problem is that if the server does not have access to the internet, then the .NET framework can’t access the crl.microsoft.com website to verify that the digital signatures used to sign the binaries for managed applications are valid. Each certificate check has a 15 second timeout in the .NET runtime implementation. Depending on what features are installed, this can add up to a minute of startup time for Management Studio.
Reference: SQL Server Management Studio Startup Time (MSDN Blog)
Solutions
You can circumvent part of the issue, by downloading the certificate directly be entering the link into your browser and then importing the certificate to your certificate database
You can reconfigure your (company's) firewall to allow connections to Microsoft's CRL
You can reconfigure your personal antivirus/firewall to allow connections to the Microsoft CRL
You can configure your (company's) firewall to send a timeout faster to your client for requests accessing Microsoft's CRL.
You can configure IE to no longer "Check publisher's certificate revocation" in the advanced settings.
(See above mentioned blogs 1 and 2 for details)
Best Answer
Management Studio remembers each server that you connect to and the logins used to connect to them.
The logins are remembered in from the last new login used. For example if you connect to a server for the first time as 'sa' and then connect as 'bob', 'bob' will appear at the top of the login drop down. Then if you connect as 'tony' then 'tony' will appear at the top of the drop down.
Reconnecting to the different users will not change their order in the list and 'tony' will remain as the default login until a new user is used.
This list can removed by removing the Server from the Server Name drop down. This is done by expanding the server name list, hovering over the server name and pressing delete as detailed here: Deleting Old server names from "Connect to Server" dialog in SSMS