Riot just handed some of you your taskbar pixels back. Starting today, Vanguard can flip to on-demand mode for Valorant and League players whose rigs pass the new Pre-Check security hurdles, so the kernel driver no longer boots with Windows. Microsoft’s Xbox OS Security crew added the Runtime Driver Attestation Report in Windows 11 25H2, letting Riot trust a secured list of loaded drivers instead of babysitting the whole system from startup.

Only about 35% of players already meet the requirements—Windows 11 25H2 minimum, UEFI with Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 enabled, plus VBS, HVCI, and IOMMU turned on. The rest can either tweak their BIOS or keep the always-on version running. Riot’s Phillip Koskinas made it crystal clear this is optional; no one’s forced to reconfigure their motherboard just to play.

Community chatter on X is split between “finally” and “about damn time” with the usual side of BIOS fear. The move shows kernel anti-cheat can evolve when the OS steps up, but the real test is whether cheaters adapt faster than the new Windows safeguards hold. Either way, the driver finally learned how to clock out.