CrossDeviceService.exe

Question

I have suddenly started to get an error message on my screen (Windows 11 Pro) after a few seconds from booting my computer and logging in to Windows.

CrossDeviceService.exe - Bad Image

c:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00.UWPDesktop_14.0.33519.0_x648wekyb3d8bbwe\MSVCP140.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again etc etc

But I don't know what program is causing this! Gives error status 0x0000020 but that hasn't helped with the issue.

Does anybody have experience of this problem,please.

Update: The problem appears to have corrected itself without my intervention

May have been something to do with a recent Windows update. Who knows??

Answer 1

Hello，MPerry48

Thank you for posting in the Microsoft community.

We understand that you have received an error from CrossDeviceService.exe, which is a background service responsible for cross-device synchronisation, and may be caused by enabling the synchronisation function of certain applications, you can check whether there are related applications first.

Then to confirm if the issue can be affected by third-party software, you can perform a clean boot to see if third-party software has compromised your system's components. For clean boot steps, see: How to perform a clean boot in Windows - Microsoft Support

Exemption: "Clean Boot" boots Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. It helps you determine if a background service is interfering with your game or program and isolate the cause of the problem.These "clean boot" steps may seem complicated at first glance. However, to avoid problems, follow them in order and step by step to help you get back on track.

We can't exclude the system component's own error, you can also test it by adopting the following steps synchronously, please check whether there is any system update first:

You can use this command to check and fix if system files are missing and corrupted, the system searches for the command prompt at the bottom of the search bar, right-click to run it as administrator, type the following, and press Enter on each line as appropriate:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth

SFC /SCANNOW

Create a new account, log in to the new account, and see if the problem persists. If the issue doesn't occur in the new account, or may be related to the original user settings or configuration file, follow the steps below: Create a local user or administrator account in Windows - Microsoft Support

Looking forward to your attempts and replies, please feel free to contact us with any progress, if the problem has not been solved we can consider reinstalling MSVCP140.dll.

Best Regards，

Rota Ye |Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

Hello，MPerry48

If you want to reinstall the Phone Link application you can try typing Powershell in the must-have search bar and open it, then type the following command in and select Enter:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers  | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

Click on the Start icon - Settings - System - System Composition Options - locate the Phone Link app in turn and click the three-dot menu button next to it, select the Advanced option, slide the new page to the bottom and click the Repair button to fix the app, if the problem still persists you can try it out by clicking the Reset button to reset the Phone Link app to its original defaults.

Looking forward to your attempts, we can give it a try first and we will keep an eye on this issue!

Best Regards，

Rota Ye |Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 3

Try uninstalling cross device experience host from

System --> System Components  cross device experience host

Answer 4

Thank you very much for your very comprehensive reply.

I did the clean boot action and through a process of elimination managed to deduce that Mobile Devices under Start Up was causing the error message on my screen.

I then reset all other apps I had Disabled back to Enabled with the exception of Mobile Devices and reset my PC to start normally.

So at this stage I have lost the error message which is good but I don't know why I now cant use Mobile Devices as I assume this has something to do with the Phone Link App which I had uninstalled as I thought this may have been the culprit all along.

I then ran the CheckHealth,RestoreHealth and Scannow with each bringing up no issues.

The Phone Link app I had always used to transfer photos from my Android phone to my PC as it is faster than using Bluetooth.

Is there a way I can get this app to reinstall without causing errors as I assume I would have to have Mobile Devices enabled for it to work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 5

The DLL's in both these directories have 0 bytes:

Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00.UWPDesktop_14.0.33728.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe

Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00.UWPDesktop_14.0.33728.0_x84__8wekyb3d8bbwe

We deleted both directories and rebooted the machine. We believe this caused photos, notepad, mspaint, etc. To revert back to the older DLL versions in these directories:

Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00.UWPDesktop_14.0.33519.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe

Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00.UWPDesktop_14.0.33519.0_x84__8wekyb3d8bbwe

It worked.