Fix: Windows could not start the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

• Blog
• September 22, 2022

If you’ve been having trouble with the Background Intelligent Transfer Service on your Windows computer, you’re not alone. Many users have reported this issue, and it can be a real pain to fix. In this article, we’ll show you how to fix the Windows could not start the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) error.

Fix: Windows could not start the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

What is the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)?

The Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is a windows service that helps transfer data in the background between a client and a server. It can be used to download files from a server, upload files to a server, or both. BITS is designed to be efficient with network and battery resources.

There are two main ways that BITS can be used. The first is by applications that use the BITS API to transfer files in the background. The second is by the BITSAdmin tool, which can be used to create and manage BITS transfer jobs from the command line.

BITS is an important service for many applications that need to transfer data in the background. If the service is not running, these applications will not be able to transfer data.

If you are experiencing issues with BITS, there are a few things that you can try to fix the problem.

First, try restarting the service. You can do this by going to the Start menu, then typing in “services.msc” and pressing Enter. This will open the Services window. Find the “Background Intelligent Transfer Service” entry and double-click it. Click the “Stop” button, then click the “Start” button.

If restarting the service does not work, you can try resetting the BITS service. To do this, go to the Start menu and type in “cmd”. Right-click on the “Command Prompt” entry and select “Run as administrator”.

At the command prompt, type in “bitsadmin /reset” and press Enter. This will reset the BITS service and hopefully fix any issues that you were experiencing.

If you are still having issues with BITS, you can try uninstalling and reinstalling the service. To do this, go to the Start menu and type in “appwiz.cpl”. This will open the Add or Remove Programs window.

Find the “Background Intelligent Transfer Service” entry and click the “Uninstall” button. Follow the prompts to uninstall the service. Once the service is uninstalled, you can reinstall it by running the “bitsadmin /register” command at the command prompt.

Hopefully one of these solutions will fix the problem and you will be able to use BITS again.

How to fix the error: “Windows could not start the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)”

If you see the error “Windows could not start the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)” when you try to start the BITS service, it may be because the service is not set to the correct startup type. To fix this, follow these steps:

1. Open the Services snap-in by running the command services.msc.

2. Locate the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) service.

3. Right-click on the service and select Properties.

4. In the Startup type drop-down, select Automatic.

5. Click Apply and then click OK.

6. Try starting the BITS service again.

Conclusion

If you find that the Background Intelligent Transfer Service is not running on your Windows computer, you can try the following steps to fix the issue. First, open the Services console and check if the BITS service is set to start automatically. If it is not, set it to start automatically and then restart your computer. If the issue persists, you can try manually starting the service from the Services console. If that doesn’t work, you may need to repair or re-install the BITS service.

Further Reading

There are a few things that can cause the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to fail to start. One common issue is that the BITS service may be set to Disabled in the Windows Services manager. To check this, open the Services manager (press the Windows key + R, type “services.msc” into the Run dialog, and press Enter) and look for the BITS service. If the service is set to Disabled, change it to Automatic and try starting the service again.

Another possible cause of the BITS service failing to start is that the BITS service account may have become corrupted. To fix this, you’ll need to re-register the BITS service by running the following command in an elevated command prompt:

bitsadmin /util /registerbitsservice

If the issue persists, you may need to repair or reinstall the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) files. For more information on how to do this, see the Microsoft support article: How to use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files.