The necessary services are disabled or unavailable. Error 0x80246007

There are two errors associated with this:

"The necessary services are disabled or unavailable. Error 0x80246007"

"The necessary services are disabled or unavailable. Error 0x80246008"

I saw this error when one of my computers was trying to install updates from Windows Server Update Services, but you may also see it when you are trying to connect to the Windows Update site, or when you are trying to install updates downloaded from the Windows Update site.

In my case it was an issue with the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) needing to be re-registered. These steps are all outlined in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 883822.

To re-register the service, perform the following steps:

1. Click on Start then Run
2. Type "cmd" and click on "OK" or press enter.
3. In the Command Prompt Window, type in "regsvr32 qmgr.dll" then press enter. A window should pop up stating that "DllRegisterServer in qmgr.dll succeeded" Click "OK".
4. In the Command Prompt Window, type in "regsvr32 qmgrprxy.dll " then press enter. A window should pop up stating that "DllRegisterServer in qmgrprxy.dll succeeded" Click "OK".
5. Close the command Prompt Window.

Now you should be able to install updates, but if you've been having this problem for awhile, you may need to install a whole slew of updates to get caught up.

The knowledge base article says that Microsoft Update and Microsoft Windows Update are the affected products. I saw the issue on Windows XP Pro, SP2.

References

MS KB 883822 - You receive a "The necessary services are disabled or unavailable" error message when you connect to the Microsoft Windows Update Web site or to the Microsoft Update Web site. - Microsoft