There are several methods you find if you google
- Setting the BITS Start Key under HKLM\Services\CurrentControlSet to 4
- Run "sc stop bits"
- Run mscongig & go to startup and uncheck Background Intelligent Transfer Service.
I tried all of these but none of these prevent BITS from downloading stuff in the background.
Normally, it's not so bad, but I had a Windows Update download stop in between when my internet connection went down. When my internet connection came back up, the BITS choked up my internet connection downloading stuff continously. You will see it in Task Manager Performance Tab Monitor Resources as hostsvc -k netsvcs.