WOW, how obscure; but thanks a million 'cuz that did it! I'd googled all over
and never found any reference to doing this but it fixed my problem. No idea
how that key was deleted <sigh>

In article <#0uWAUY5FHA.2364@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>, Lawrence Garvin [MVP] wrote:
> From: "Lawrence Garvin [MVP]" <onsitechsolutions@news.postalias>
> Subject: Re: BITS won't start
> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 17:21:06 -0600
> Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsupdate
>
> Larry, this can be caused by a missing key in the registry:
>
> Nick, a follow up... this can be caused by missing subkey in the registry:
>
> Locate the registry key
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\BackupRestore\
>
> Create the following key if it does not exist:
> FilesNotToBackup
>
> so you have this path when finished:
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l
> \BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup\
>
> Now see if BITS will start.
>
> "Larry Waibel" <lwaibel@no-spam-cox.net> wrote in message
> news:VA.000002e8.002936cb@no-spam-cox.net...
> > I've been using Microsoft Update (XP Pro, SP2) fine for a long time but
> > suddenly it's failing. When I tell it to do the downloads, it just sits for
> > a long time and then reports they all failed. The failure code in the
> > history is 0x80246008. This leads to some help that says the Background
> > Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is not started. When I use services.msc
> > to try to start it, I get "Windows could not start the Backtround
> > Intelligent
> > Transfer Service on Local Computer. For more information, review the System
> > Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor,
> > and refer to service-specific error code -2147024894." When I check the
> > System Event log, I find "The server {4991D34B-80A1-4291-83B6-3328366B9097}
> > did not register with DCOM within the required timeout." When I go to the
> > help for that it just tells me how to determine the vendor and to report the
> > problem to them; but this is a Microsoft service <sigh>. I did note that
> > BITS is dependent on RPC and that is started. What else can keep BITS from
> > being able to start? Thanks!
> >
> >
>