devicecensus.exe

Some users have reported deleting devicecensus.exe from their PCs with no adverse effects (see devicecensus.exe - Microsoft Community). However, another such MS thread says that devicecensus is used to gather information about your PC to target builds through Windows Update (devicecensus.exe - Microsoft Community). Thus, it seems to me you could kill the task except before getting ready to run Windows Update (and launch it manually just beforehand) to cut down on such occurrences. Not sure there's any other fix until and unless MS addresses the instability problems that are being reported on your PC. I'd suggest posting something about this to the Feedback Hub to be sure to bring it to Microsoft's attention. OTOH, there is already a thread labeled "devicecensus.exe crashed" up there, so you may decide just to upvote that thread instead. I just did that, based on your post!
--Ed--

Good solution! There's always another way to get from where you are, to where you want to be, if only you *THINK* hard enough. You figured it out in a pretty good way.
--Ed--

I've also had the DevicesCensus error the day after I updated to 1803.

Simply block(debug) it by adding this key to the registry.

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\DeviceCensus.exe]
"Debugger"="C:\\Windows\\System32\\systray.exe"

Or use this script

Code:

@echo OFF
:: Check for administrative permissions 
>nul 2>&1 "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\cacls.exe" "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\config\system" 
:: If error flag set, we do not have admin. 
if '%errorlevel%' NEQ '0' ( 
echo Requesting administrative privileges... 
goto UACPrompt 
) else ( goto gotAdmin ) 
:UACPrompt 
echo Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) > "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" 
echo UAC.ShellExecute "cmd.exe", "/C """"%~f0""""", , "runas", 1 >> "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" 
cscript "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" 
exit /B 
:gotAdmin 
if exist "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" ( del "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" ) 
pushd "%CD%" 
CD /D "%~dp0" 
:: BatchGotAdmin (Run as Admin code ends)

:: ======================= Block DeviceCensus.exe =======================
echo.
reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\DeviceCensus.exe" > NUL 2>&1
if %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 goto blocked
:block
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\DeviceCensus.exe" /v Debugger /d "%Windir%\System32\systray.exe" /f
echo.
echo DeviceCensus.exe is now blocked.
goto end
:blocked
echo DeviceCensus.exe is already blocked.
:end
echo.
echo.
echo Press any key to exit...
pause >nul