Topic last updated—March 2008

Enabling Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) on a Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 distribution point helps control bandwidth when downloading content from a standard distribution point to a Configuration Manager 2007 client. When a computer is downloading from a BITS-enabled distribution point and is interrupted, it can resume where it left off, even if the client computer connects to a different distribution point.

A BITS-enabled distribution point must have Internet Information Services (IIS) installed and WebDAV enabled, which increases the attack surface on that computer and can increase administrative overhead. However, if you do not enable BITS, clients will always use server message blocks (SMBs) to download content, even in native mode. In native mode, you should enable BITS to permit clients to download content using HTTPS. In mixed mode, you should enable BITS on your distribution points to provide a better download experience for your clients.

You must enable BITS if the Configuration Manager 2007 distribution point must support the following clients:

If you will have branch distribution points, you must have at least one BITS-enabled standard distribution point from which to download content.

Important
You must download, install, and configure WebDAV manually on BITS-enabled distribution points running Windows Server 2008. You might also have to edit the requestFiltering section of the applicationHost.config file if your packages contain extensions that are blocked. For more information, see How to Configure Windows Server 2008 for Site Systems.

See Also