Windows 7 Backup Utility Fails

My Windows 7 built in backup utility has failed. The system tells me the specified service does not exist as an installed service(0x80070424) Win 7 Ultimate x 64 RTM. Any ideas?

The default in Windows 7 for the Windows Backup service is manual, apparently because it's only started on-demand when going through the official interface.

From the Start menu, start "Backup and Restore", then click on "Set up backup". This will start the service and then bring up a dialog where (I hope) you can do the backup. I couldn't follow this further since my Windows 7 is in a virtual machine.

If you're using another interface for the backup and want the Windows Backup service to always be available, then start Services.msc from the Start menu, double-click on the "Windows Backup" service and set its Startup type to "Automatic (Delayed start)".

EDIT

Another possibility is that a registry cleanup utility has destroyed a needed registry entry.

Either rollback to a previous system restore point or get from another computer with the same level of operating system the contents of the following registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wbengine.

This thread contains the registry update file for Vista, which may work also for Windows 7.