How to Remove Riot Vanguard Kernel-Level Anti-Cheat After you Uninstall Valorant
Kernel level Anti-Cheat has become more and more popular in online games and is supposed to dramatically reduce the number of cheaters in games.... But.... As is always the way it doesn't actually do all that much, just like everything that game before it. In fact, it can actually add vulnerabilities to your system so follow along as we show you how to remove it from your system because uninstalling games doesn't always remove it.
How to Remove Riot Vanguard Kernel-Level Anti-Cheat After you Uninstall Valorant
- Open Settings > Apps > Installed Apps (or Add or Remove Programs on older Windows versions).
- Find Valorant, click Uninstall, and follow the prompts.
- Look for Riot Vanguard in the list of installed programs and uninstall it separately.
Manually Remove Vanguard Services
Even after uninstallation, some kernel-level components of Vanguard may linger. Remove them with these steps:
- Open Command Prompt as Administrator:
- Press Win + R, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to launch as admin.
- Stop and Delete Vanguard’s Kernel-Level Services
Enter the following commands one by one and press Enter after each:
sc stop vgc
sc stop vgk
sc delete vgc
sc delete vgk
Delete Remaining Vanguard Files
Even after stopping and removing the services, Vanguard may leave files behind. To ensure full removal:
- Press Win + R, type %ProgramFiles%, and press Enter.
- Locate and delete the "Riot Vanguard" folder if it still exists.
- Open the Registry Editor (Win + R > type regedit > press Enter).
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
- Look for "vgc" and "vgk", right-click, and delete them.
- Finally, restart your computer.
Final Check: Confirm Vanguard is Gone
After restarting, check if Vanguard is fully removed:
- Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc)
- Go to the Services tab and verify that vgc and vgk are not running.
Open Command Prompt (Admin) and type:
sc query vgc
sc query vgk
- If both return "The specified service does not exist", then Vanguard is completely removed.