Background Intelligent Transfer Service ( BITS ) on Windows 10

Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is a system component in Microsoft Windows operating system which facilitates asynchronous, prioritized, and throttled transfer of files between machines using idle network bandwidth. It also plays a role in the download of files from a peer. This BITS Service is essential for Windows Updates to work properly. If the service is disabled, then any applications that depend on BITS, such as Windows Update or MSN Explorer, will be unable to automatically download programs and other information.

Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) Version History

Microsoft first Introduced Background Intelligent Transfer Service on Windows 2000

Next Microsoft Upgraded BITS version 1.0 in Windows XP in 2001.

Than Version 1.2 arrived in mid-2002 to add the Automatic Updates service to Windows 2000.

With Windows Server 2003 Microsoft updates BITS Version 1.5 late 2003 and brought command-line support, more upload features, and security improvements.

BITS Version 2.0, released in mid-2004 as an update for multiple OS deployments, added more download features, bandwidth throttling and support for Server Message Block (SMB).

Released in mid-2007, BITS version 2.5 added support for IPv6 and custom HTTP headers, and better HTTP security.

With Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Microsoft included BITS version 3.0 with peer caching, notifications, temporary file access, HTTP redirect handling, additional Group Policy controls, and event logging.

In mid-2009 Microsoft Included BITS version 4.0 with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, brought token-based security, standalone file server features, refined bandwidth throttling, and revised peer caching.

BITS 5.0, included with Windows 10 in mid-2016, added improvements to background copy jobs and support for older background copy jobs, and the ability to use BITS through APIs and PowerShell cmd.

With Windows 10 creator update Version 1703 Microsoft upgrade BITS version 10.1 with refined download and notification features.

How To Start / Restart BITS service?

On Windows computer, Background Intelligent Transfer Service is set to start automatically at startup. But due to some Reason, if Service is not started, you may face different problems while check and install windows updates. That cause you need to manually check and start the BITS service. continue Reading…