Question: I'm completely new to working with SharePoint and Windows Server, but last week I was given a small brief to play with SharePoint 2010 to see how I got along with it.

Anyway I've set up a SharePoint server and had a mess around to get some new sites and pages created etc, but I'm now looking to have a try at importing some AD groups. As part of this I've look at these tutorials, [here](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721049.aspx) and [here](http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/configuring-the-user-profile-service-in-sharepoint-2010/). 

So far I've got through to the process of starting the User Profile Service which works fine, but when I get it starting the User Profile Synchronization service it sits on starting. But when I refresh the page or go to the monitoring section it shows it as aborted. Now I'm new to administering servers like I say and when I start the User Profile Synchronization service it tries to run as NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE and asks for a password so I've been providing it with the admin password, now I'm not sure if this is part of the issue or not as I've checked the log files and they seem to say that it doesn't have permissions, which is fair enough, but I can't see how you can change the account even if I wanted to.

So if anyone could help it would be appreciated, if you need any further information to help with an answer, just let me know.

Answer: 
Just follow the instructions in this article and you'll be able to set it up successfully.
<http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2010ups.aspx>
I actually fell into TWO traps when I provisioned SQL for my SharePoint 2010 farm, and both traps were not very well documented either my Spence Harbar's famous UPS article (mentions it) or by Technet (no mention AFAIK). First of all I set up a named instance of SQL Server, like SERVERNAME\SHAREPOINT. Then I used the SQL server's FQDN (servername.domain.name\SHAREPOINT) name when I installed SharePoint, which is another thing the UPS can't handle.

I tried a lot of troubleshooting, but in the end was forced to reinstall SQL and SharePoint. Had a lot of trouble with uninstalling Office Web Apps and SharePoint and in the end I'm stuck with a trouble-ridden SharePoint install and only a few days until deadline. Oh well, it could be worse.. :)

Anyways, DON'T use SQL named instance OR SQL FQDN if you think you'll ever provision UPS, that's my point. Both work perfectly in all other scenarios, but you never know, do you.. :)