My Windows 2000 Professional machine running SP3 fails in starting the Automatic Updates Service and the Background Intelligent Transfer Service. I get the following error message in 'SERVICES.MSC':

"Could not start the Background Intelligent Transfer Service service on Local Computer.
Error 1053: The Service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion."

This message appears 1 or 2 seconds after pressing the Start Service button. Same for Automatic Updates Service. I don't have a clue how to fix it.

From the microsoft.public.windows.backgroundtransfer newsgroup
Here's some things to check:

• From a Command Prompt, type 'net start bits'.  If any errors are displayed look in the System Log (by running 'EVENTVWR') to see if there is any more information in those event messages related to AU and BITS service startup.
   
• Check that 'WINHTTP.DLL' exists in '%windir%\system32'
   
• In the Services snap-in, check that 'System Event Notification' and 'Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions' services are running.  Also check that the Startup type for the BITS service is 'Automatic'.
   
• Get the 'TLIST.EXE' tool from the Windows 2000 Support Tools.  After a reboot, try to start the BITS service. In another Command window, run 'TLIST /s' and check if there is a process with "Svcs: BITS" on the right side.  Then run, 'TLIST <pid> of the process id corresponding to BITS service'.
   
• If the BITS service still won't start from the Support Tools run the 'DEPENDS.EXE' tool as follows:
  depends.exe %windir%\system32\qmgr.dll
  
  followed by
  
  depends.exe %windir%\system32\wuauserv.dll
  
  This GUI tool will tell if any dependencies of these DLLs are not present in your machine.  For example you might see something like:
  
  "Warning: At least one delay-load dependency module was not found.
  
  Error: At least one module has an unresolved import due to a missing export function in a delay-load dependent module."
   
• Using reg.exe run:
  reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\currentcontrolset\services\bits /s
  
  reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\currentcontrolset\services\wuauserv /s
  
  reg query HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BITS
  
  If any of the above Registry keys are missing you’ll see an error such as
  
  ’Error: The system was unable to find the specified registry key or value’
  
  If this is the case then add these keys back into the Registry.
   
• Check that the following files are present on your machine in the system32 directory:
  QMGR.DLL
  WUAUSERV.DLL
  WINHTTP.DLL
   
• Change the Startup type of BITS to 'Manual', then reboot the machine.  Open a Command prompt then try 'net start bits' and see if the same error occurs
   
• If all else fails run the following:
  
  reg query "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\svchost" /s
  
  In the above key, you should see the values of 'BITSGroup' and 'wugroup'.  If these values do not exist, use the following commands to add the following the values:
  
  C:> reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\svchost" /v BITSGroup /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d BITS
  
  C:> reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\svchost" /v wugroup /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d wuauserv
  
  C:> reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\svchost\BITSGroup"
  
  C:> reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\svchost\wugroup"
  
  C:> reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\svchost\BITSGroup" /v DefaultRpcStackSize /t REG_DWORD /d 8
  
  C:> reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\svchost\wugroup" /v CoInitializeSecurityParam /t REG_DWORD /d 1
  
  Now try to start BITS.
   

After completing the last step the BITS service started successful. In this particular case the problem was caused by a System State being restored to the machine. The System State was created with SP2, BUT SP3 was re-applied.  It seems for some reason SP3 didn't install of the required files/ Registry updates.