VALORANT Won't Launch After Enabling a WSL2 Environment

Do you ever develop in a WSL2 environment, or play VALORANT on a PC that uses Docker Desktop with WSL2? I ran into a Riot Vanguard error (such as VAN9005) and could not launch the game, so these are my notes from looking into what to do.

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Best Practice

Just move to Windows 11 already, and enable UEFI and TPM 2.0. If you keep saying booting into the BIOS is too much trouble, you will never be able to play VALORANT comfortably. If your CPU and motherboard setup can do this, it is the best-practice solution, so go do it.

For People Using a Potato PC That Can’t Do That

Yes, that’s me. If you absolutely cannot enable UEFI and TPM 2.0 in your environment, Riot’s guidance says you need to “disable VBS”. In other words, you need to set hypervisorlaunchtype Off, which means it cannot coexist with WSL2.

In this case, the practical answer is not coexistence; it is switching between them, including a reboot.

Typing commands manually every time you switch between playing VALORANT ⇔ launching WSL2 is a pain, so I looked for a way to switch between my development environment and gaming environment with as little hassle as possible. I found a good tool, so I am introducing it here.

Use hypervisorcontrol

https://github.com/aneeskhan47/hypervisorcontrol

The fastest way to learn how to use it is to read the tool’s README above, but here is a quick explanation anyway.

• Download HypervisorControl.ps1 from the link above
• Right-click it and run it as administrator
• Follow the on-screen instructions, choose Enable / Disable, and reboot

Final Thoughts

I want to buy a good PC.