Fixing the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

First off, I’d like to get the joke out of the way that BITS is a bit of an oxymoron sort of like Army Intelligence….ba dah ba!

OK, now that I’ve got that out of my system, I have to say that this has been one heck of a problem to solve, and that the search-ability of this topic is fairly low.

My problem arose a while back when my Windows Automatic Updater stopped updating automatically. At first it was not a big deal, I would simply use my browser to go to the Microsoft Update site on a regular basis. While this is a fine solution for me, I realize that for a large majority it is not.

I recently decided to install the Google Pack since I wanted some of the Google Software it contained and did not feel like tracking down the stand alone installers. After installing the “Google Updater” the software would tell me that the “Background Intelligent Transfer Service failed to start”. Looking in the Event Viewer I was presented with this information from the System log.

Event Type: Error Event Source: Service Control Manager Event Category: None Event ID: 7023 Date: 2/13/2008 Time: 7:21:39 AM User: N/A Computer: JOEL2 Description: The Background Intelligent Transfer Service service terminated with the following error: The system cannot find the file specified.

Not very informative and, unfortunately, searching for that event ID and other bits of information was not very fruitful.

I finally came across the post How To Fix Windows Update (BITS/AU) after quite a bit of searching. Reading through this fine article by Mike I quickly realized just how many things can go wrong with BITS.

I began going through the list of things to try, of course verifying first if I needed to do a particular step. In step 2 there is a registry file to down and merge to try to fix the problem. I opened the file and looked through each setting to see if I needed to do it. It turned out that there was 1 setting I was missing. Parameters key was missing completely. Here is the part of the registry file that I ended up merging which fixed my BITS problem.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\BITS\Parameters]
“ServiceDll”=hex(2):43,00,3a,00,5c,00,57,00,49,00,4e,00,44,00,4f,00,57,00,53,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,71,00,6d,00,\
67,00,72,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00

The ServiceDll value, converted to ASCII, is C:\WINDOWS\system32\qmgr.dll

After merging this my service started up and Google Updater worked great. Thanks for the article, Mike!

February 13, 2008 - Posted by palehorse | Operating Systems, Windows

34 Comments »

Excellent Post. Had same problem and the Registry entry fixed the problem.
Note: When pasting the key into a text file, I had to replace the ” symbol!

Comment by Manfred Koroschetz | May 9, 2008 | Reply
Worked very well, thanks

Comment by tipifire | May 21, 2008 | Reply
This was a fantastic and quick help, as I was blocked badly by this problem today. Your post was my first Google hit, your advice was clear and to the point, and it got me going right away.

One variation on my system:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\BITS\Parameters already had the correct entry.

However, I looked at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BITS\Parameters and found that it was missing from there.

I added the entry as you described, and BITS started up easily after that, and MS Updates could once again resume.

Again, thanks!

Comment by Matt Walker | October 23, 2008 | Reply
Great, happy to help!

Comment by palehorse | October 24, 2008 | Reply
I have the same issue. Tried the advice given on Microsoft’s page, but it the BITS still doesn’t show up on the list of services. So, while I understand there is obviously something missing….I don’t quite understand how to get it back. Where do I type in the entry that you all show? Please help. Thanks.

Comment by Gerry | January 17, 2009 | Reply
Gerry,

I simply downloaded the registry file from the site linked to above. Once you have it, you can double click on it and your system will ask you if you want to merge it into your registry. That saves having to type it in.

Comment by palehorse | January 18, 2009 | Reply
Castlecops seems to be down now indefinitely. You won’t happen to have the registry file available anymore would you?

I was hit by some kind of trojan and malware that disabled my AU and BITS. I’ve now got AU working but BITS isn’t. It’s likely that the lack of a Parameters (all I see are Enum and Security) on my regedit is what’s keeping it from working.

Comment by Megaton | January 26, 2009 | Reply
- I’m sorry, I do not. That’s too bad about CastleCops. Maybe you can try to find some contact information to get the file from them.
  
  Comment by palehorse | January 26, 2009 | Reply
I’ve looked on my registry editor, and the Binary files are both in the control001 and currentcontrol, but I can’t go onto any Microsoft-related items e.g. Halo 2, Windows Update etc. My Xbox 360 can connect fine to Xbox LIVE, but this computer can’t. The error displayed when attempting to start BITS is the 193: oxc1 error. Amy help?

Comment by harry | February 8, 2009 | Reply
Harry,

I don’t know about your error specifically. If you have a firewall on your computer (especially if it is not the Microsoft one) make sure that it has allowances for BITS. If that’s not the case, you may want to make sure that you have the latest service pack for your operating system. If that is not an option and you are running XP, you can have a look at this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314862

Comment by palehorse | February 9, 2009 | Reply
I had this issue on a PC that was cleaned of viruses. After hours of searching for a solution I searched the registry for the word BITS and found 2 instances of a path where the word %SystemRoot% had been changed to %fystemRoot%. This prevented BITS from finding the specified file.

Comment by Rob | February 22, 2009 | Reply
- Thanks for the tip Rob! Would you mind sharing which registry keys those were (if you still have them written down somewhere) for others to see? Since the CasleCops site has went off-line it’s been hard to find good information about fixing the problem.
  
  Comment by palehorse | February 23, 2009 | Reply
- I just want to say thank you to all of you who actually take the time to post on issues you’ve had.
  
  THANKS ROB! I also had this happen after I cleaned a Trojan of my machine. I was also getting Buffer Overflow errors that Mcafee kept prompting me saying it was blocking these. After looking further I also found where %SystemRoot% had been changed to %fystemRoot%. Thanks
  
  Comment by Stringer | June 30, 2009 | Reply
- Thank you Rob that worked great!!!
  
  Comment by daks | November 12, 2009 | Reply
I noticed that 4 registries in the BITS had @%SystemRoot%, so I removed the @ from them but it still has done nothing. I can access the live.com site, but nothing else related to microsoft eg. support, GFW-LIVE. I don’;t have any firewalls blocking BITS and Windows Defender has allowed it through, the COM Host is also not functioning as well which could be the source of the error since BITS relies on that. I’ve tried Live Messenger too, but no luck . If the registry keys could be found I would be very grateful, I really want to earn some more achievements on Halo 2 lol .

Comment by harry | March 4, 2009 | Reply
I fixed my BITS couldn’t not start issue by searching the registry for BITS and changing the %fystemRoot% to %SystemRoot% and this fixed BITS. Thanks for the help.

Comment by James | March 11, 2009 | Reply
- I finally got access to windows update and could not install updates. Microsoft solutions left me with a “system cannot find file” error for finding the background intelligent transfer service. Searched the registry for Bits and found a single %fystemroot% item.
  Changed it to %Systemroot% and updates work like a charm.
  (it might be faster to search for %fystemroot%
  Thanks
  
  Comment by Chris | October 15, 2009 | Reply
Thank you James that worked great!!!

Comment by larry | March 13, 2009 | Reply
It’s really great. I searched through the web for tons of answers but still do not work. Sucks!!
Finally I found out your page by searching Background Intelligent Transfer Service 7023 in google and got the answers. Yeah !!!

Btw, I think that my BITS problem may due to some Trojan/virus problem (Anyone has more idea regarding this?). At the first glance, my registry’s ServiceDll value was being blocked which is not able to be changed by Administrator. I’ve to add the Admin access to the parm value before I can make the change. Also, in my case ServiceDll has been changed to a invalid dll (like Ffjjr.dll), i.e. the service cannot be started.

Comment by Fok | March 23, 2009 | Reply
Rob, you just saved my ass. Sure enough the parent BITS folder of the one posted above (in CurrentControlSet) had %fystem instead of %System! Thanks!

Comment by William | May 4, 2009 | Reply
How do I get to the registry to search for BITS? I need a step by step tutorial because I have no idea. BITS doesn’t exist in the list of services at all on my computer. Can someone help me out? I have 32 bit vista

Comment by Kadija | June 2, 2009 | Reply
- Kadija, if you do not know how to view and edit registry settings, I strongly recommend that you find somebody who is comfortable with performing these actions. Modifying the registry can have catastrophic consequences on your system if not done properly.
  
  Comment by palehorse | June 2, 2009 | Reply
I also cannot install windows update. This is so aggravating. I recently installed Office 2007 and I couldn’t update since.

Comment by Kadija | June 2, 2009 | Reply
Just wanted to say thank you for this article. I have spent the last 20 hours or so trying to fix my niece’s laptop that she filled with trojans and malware. There were so many registry problems with it and I think that this problem with BITS is the last thing that I had to fix.

My problem was a little bit different than yours. The path in her registry was listed as %fystemroot% not %SystemRoot% like it should be. I just changed that and it works fine now.

Ohh… and the link to the article you mentioned that has the registry file for download is broken.

Comment by Eric H. | August 8, 2009 | Reply
I had the same problem with the ImagePath set to

%fystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs

for two BITS and two wuauserv entries in the registry.

But in addition, the “Full Control” permissions for administrators had been removed for all four entries, so I had to grant those first by right clicking the BITS and wuauserv entries.

Does anybody know which trojan is doing this?

Comment by LittleMol | August 18, 2009 | Reply
- At least 1 that’s been reported to do this is Malware-WSOCK.SYS. It’s likely that more than one use this tactic however given the number of times it seems to be coming up here.
  
  Comment by palehorse | August 18, 2009 | Reply
thanks u save my ass, i looked over 1 day for solution
%fystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs

thats was trojan , damn him , after changing to %System all was working great !!

thanks !thanks !thanks !thanks !thanks !

Comment by zyxy | August 27, 2009 | Reply
That was awesome! I had spent a couple of days searching for an answer and I had tried numerous suggestions until stumbling on this site.

Adding…

HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\BITS\Parameters
ServiceDll REG_EXPAND_SZ C:\WINDOWS\system32\qmgr.dll

…to the registry was all it took! I was missing the Parameters entry completely and all I had was the Enum and Security entries in my registry.

Thanks again!

Comment by Chris F | September 7, 2009 | Reply
I have the exact same problem. I’ve read through this whole page and everything else I could get my hand on from the internet…but since castlecops is down I wasn’t able to get the registry key…

I tried to add in the one that Chris F gave, namely:

“HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\BITS\ParametersServiceDll REG_EXPAND_SZ C:\WINDOWS\system32\qmgr.dll”

but I’m not sure if I did it correctly because I went back to Services in the Administrative Tools and tried to start BITS but it couldn’t find the specified file again. I too didn’t have Parameters in my registry, only Enum and Security…but again, I don’t know if I edited the registry correctly as it is my first time…I know that it’s potentially dangerous if I don’t know what I’m doing but I think I can do it on my own…If you could just walk me through it though since you just got yours fixed 3 days ago and you seemed to have the exact same problem that I have…that would be fantastic as I’ve now had this problem for months!

Thanks

Comment by Brian M | September 10, 2009 | Reply
In my case I had conficker worm.

I exported these keys from a known working machine, then imported on the broken machines. After this I started the BITS and Windows AutoUpdate Services and all was well:

HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Services\BITS
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\BITS
HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Services\WUAUSERV
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\WUAUSERV

Mark

Comment by Mark | November 6, 2009 | Reply
- Thanks for the tip Mark! Good to know!
  
  Comment by palehorse | November 6, 2009 | Reply
Below are the files that were changed on my machine by a Trojan acording to McAfee. Tooke me forever to get rid of the thing.
Many thanks for the super article and comments. Required reading..

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Services\BITS (ImagePath=%fystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Services\wuauserv (ImagePath=%fystemroot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\BITS (ImagePath=%fystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\wuauserv (ImagePath=%fystemroot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet004\Services\BITS (ImagePath=%fystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet004\Services\wuauserv (ImagePath=%fystemroot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BITS (ImagePath=%fystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wuauserv (ImagePath=%fystemroot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\controlset001\Services\BITS (ImagePath=%fystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\controlset001\Services\wuauserv (ImagePath=%fystemroot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs)

Comment by Dave H | November 22, 2009 | Reply
sorry that I’m not good at English(I’m Korean)

I didn’t fix my problem about BITS

even I typed ” C:\WINDOWS\system32\qmgr.dll”

But I found this

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\BITS\Imagepath”%fystemRoot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs”

I chaged Image path value to”"%fystemRoot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs”

finally It works well

Thank you so much for your hint

^-^

Comment by PURPLE | December 5, 2009 | Reply
- oops changed Image path value to “C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs”
  
  Comment by PURPLE | December 5, 2009 | Reply