Does the Background Transfer API use BITS?

Question

The Background Transfer API of the Windows Runtime has nearly identical features as BITS has. I assume that Microsoft reuses BITS in this API (BITS is well implemented and is already COM). Can someone clarify?

Answer 1

You can demonstrate that it does not use BITS by stopping the BITS service. Background transfers started by store apps will continue to run even when BITS is not running.

Also, you can look at which process is doing the transfer - BITS lives inside one of the svchost.exe processes that Windows uses the group multiple services into a single process, but Windows Store app background transfers use a different process, BackgroundTransferHost.exe.

And finally, if you use BITS administration tools, such as the PowerShell BITS commands, Windows Store app background transfer do not show up when you list active BITS jobs.

So it seems pretty conclusive: the Windows Runtime Background Transfer API is not relying on BITS.