0xc0000135 — A required DLL could not be found A dependency of the application is missing.
Why it happens
- A runtime was uninstalled
- A DLL was deleted from the app folder
- The app’s folder is on a network path that is offline
Work through these in order
- Restore the DLL from the installer
- Reinstall the runtime
- Move the app to a local path
One thing to keep in mind
Keep applications on local disks.
Before changing anything
The code above is what an application reports; it is not a diagnosis of what went wrong. Two checks are worth doing before permissions are touched: whether the file is on a volume the application can actually reach, and whether the file was moved or renamed since it was last opened. Both report as this code more often than a permission problem does.
Pages in this section describe the code as applications report it. Where a fix is listed here, it is one the library has seen work on a real file; where nothing has been confirmed, the page says so instead of guessing at a cause.
Reviewed 2026-10-05 by R. Okonkwo.