I believe the 'disappearance' of the key has been traced and attributed to
something specific, but my message doesn't convey the cause, only the fix.

A Google search on the this newsgroup for the keyword "FilesNotToBackup"
should turn up the original thread which, iirc, includes a discussion on the
known causes.

"Larry Waibel" <lwaibel@no-spam-cox.net> wrote in message
news:VA.000002e9.0071d44c@no-spam-cox.net...
> 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!
>> >
>> >
>>
>
>