How to uninstall Valorant, and what Vanguard does separately

Close the Riot Client first

Riot’s page on uninstalling games has one condition: “Closing your Riot Client is required to uninstall Riot games”. Its Vanguard guide spells out how, for a Windows account with admin access: close any game that can be launched from the Riot Client, then close the Riot Client and make sure it no longer shows in the system tray at the bottom right of the screen; if it does, right-click it and select Exit. Riot also gives a Task Manager route: press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, look for Riot Games software in the list, select it and click End task.

Uninstalling the game

Riot gives the Windows route in three lines. Press the Windows key to open the menu, type Installed apps and open it, then choose your game and select Uninstall. The page says you may need to restart your computer to perform this step. That is the whole of the standard uninstall on Riot’s page; it does not name Vanguard. The page on uninstalling programs properly covers what any removal leaves behind.

Riot Vanguard has its own guide

Riot describes Vanguard as its custom game security software: a client that runs while its games are active, along with a kernel mode driver. It says Vanguard has to stay active while you play most of its games, so that once you remove it you can no longer start most of them through the Riot Client. Its guide for uninstalling it gives two routes. From the system tray: right-click the Riot Vanguard icon and select Uninstall Vanguard, then follow the prompts. From Windows Settings: press the Windows key, type Add or Remove programs, find Riot Vanguard in the list and uninstall it. Riot’s test for success is simple: “You’ll know Vanguard has been fully uninstalled if it doesn’t show in your system tray after a computer restart.”

The same guide treats Vanguard as a troubleshooting tool too: knowing how to turn it off and uninstall it, it says, often helps with errors caused by corrupted Vanguard files. To turn it off without removing it, right-click the red Riot Vanguard icon and select Exit Vanguard; Riot says that is how to stop it. Vanguard is usually an on-boot application, so if you disable it and later want to play, you have to restart; Riot’s Pre-Check lets you run Vanguard on demand if your system meets its requirements.

When Vanguard will not uninstall

Riot’s guide has a section for the case where “Vanguard can be a bit stubborn and lingers on some computers.” With all Riot software closed, open Command Prompt as administrator, type sc delete vgc and press Enter, type sc delete vgk and press Enter, and restart the computer. After the restart, open File Explorer, go to the Program Files folder, right-click the Riot Vanguard folder and delete any remaining files. The page as we read it gives the path as “C:\Program File”, which we take to mean Program Files.

Esports Insider lists the same two commands as its third method, and its question-and-answer section says that they “will manually delete VALORANT from your computer.” Riot’s own wording is that they are steps to uninstall Vanguard. The commands name two services, vgc and vgk, and Riot does not describe them as removing the game. The Microsoft Q&A thread in the same results is a user who deleted the Riot Client and Valorant folders by hand after Windows would not uninstall them while the client ran; the answer there asks for crash logs and does not give a removal method.

A clean uninstall, for troubleshooting

Riot’s page also has a “Clean Uninstall for Game Troubleshooting”, which it says may be useful to resolve specific issues because it cleans up the cache for the game. For VALORANT it lists: go to your C:\Riot Games folder and delete the VALORANT and Riot Client folders; press Windows key + R, and in the AppData\Local folder delete the Riot Games folder and the VALORANT folder. Riot’s steps for other games add emptying the Recycle Bin and restarting the device. For League of Legends, Riot goes further and suggests Revo Uninstaller and CCleaner; it does not suggest them for VALORANT.

IObit, whose blog is among the results, ends its guide by recommending its own IObit Uninstaller as the fastest and easiest way to remove the game completely. That is a seller recommending its product, not a step in Riot’s guides.