BITS Service can't be started on Windows 8 machine

Dell XPS Tower with Windows 8. Tried to update to Windows 8.1 and I found out that no Windows updates have been installed since I purchased the computer. Almost 40 updates continue to fail the update, locking up the computer because the BITS Service will not start. I have checked that the dependent services are running (COM+ and RPC) and have tried the Windows Fixit, which cannot start BITS either.

Trying to install update KB2871389 (to get Windows 8.1) results in the 80246008 error.

With the "Windows could not start the Background Intelligent Transfer Service on Local computer error, I get an error code -2147023504.