What is Vulkan Runtime Libraries and How To Remove them?

If you accidentally find that Vulkan Runtime Libraries on your computer then there is no need to panic as it is a necessary service that must be there to maximize your experience.

Vulkan Runtime Libraries are a pack of software that aims to provide you essential graphics and functions. It is a software published by LunarG and can be found in your programs and features section. There is much software on your computer, such as software editing, video editing, and games, that utilizes your GPU and therefore, Vulkan Runtime Libraries.

A lot of people don’t even know that it is working in the background but when they do they instantly confuse them with viruses or malware. In this article, we are going to see what Vulkan Runtime Libraries are and figure out if they are viruses or not.

What are Vulkan Runtime Libraries?

The first and foremost thing we need to get right is that Vulkan Runtime Libraries are neither virus nor malware they are an essential component of your Windows software pack.

Just like DirectX and Open GL, it is a graphic standard that is relatively new. Because of this many people including tech nerds panic when they see this.

Vulkan Runtime Libraries provides cross-platform access to Graphics Processing Units of your PCs, Gaming Consoles to your mobile phones. They are very efficient in their work and helps in reducing the stress of your CPU by distributing the workload among its cores.

It may not be present in every single computer as they have different graphics, however, if your computer has Nvidia drivers then chances of your computer having Vulkan Runtime Libraries are high.

You don’t need to install it by yourself. When you install the graphic card it will automatically get installed with all the other essential drivers.

Should I uninstall Vulkan Runtime Libraries?

The clear answer would be “NO”, you shouldn’t uninstall Vulkan Runtime Libraries. But there is a lot more to it.

If you are a gamer, a video editor, or do some graphics-intensive tasks then you are using Graphics Card most of the time and in order for your graphic card to work well, you need Vulkan Runtime Libraries.

There are a ton of games, such as Dota, NFS, Doom, GTA 5, that will either not run at all or lag to the point that it will be unplayable. Therefore, if you are one of the million players of these games then do not even think about deleting it.

Are Vulkan Runtime Libraries virus?

There is a lot of speculation of it being a virus but all of them are wrong considering the core function of the driver. However, one can not look past the fact that there are a ton of viruses that can take the name of one of your core drivers or services to be unnoticeable.

In this case, we are talking about the win32/subtab!blnk virus in particular. According to many windows users, this virus affects many programs and it is one of them.

So, if you think that your computer has this virus then one of the best ways to find the truth would be to scan your computer.

To scan your computer for viruses and malware you can either download one of many antiviruses in the market or just use the Windows Defender. Windows Defender is an inbuilt antivirus that can be used to scan your computer for viruses and malware. It is free to use and probably even better than some of the paid antiviruses.

To use Windows Defender to scan your computer you need to follow the prescribed steps:-

Step 1: Launch Settings by either searching it out of the start menu or by Keyboard shortcut, Win + X, and then select Settings.

Step 2: From the appeared windows click on Update & Security.

Step 3: Now, from the left menu click Windows Security and then click Open Windows Security.

You will be redirected to the Windows Security Screen.

Step 4: Now, click on Virus & Threat Protection from the left menu and then click on Scan Options.

Step 5: From the appeared Window, select Windows Defender Offline Scan and then click Scan Now.

This will scan your computer for threats and then delete any virus or malware if they are present. After the deletion restarts your computer and hopefully, your problem related viruses and malware will be eliminated.

However, if you still face any problem related to Vulkan Runtime Libraries then we have some solutions for you.

Manage the graphic driver:-

One of the things that can cause your graphics to work in a peculiar manner is either a bugged driver or an outdated driver. We have fixes for both of them.

Update the driver:-

The first and foremost thing you should do to rectify the problem is to update the graphic driver. There are two ways of doing that we have both of them.

In the first method, we are going to use “Driver Manager” to update the driver. To do that you need to follow the prescribed steps:-

Step 1: Launch the Device Manager by either searching it out of the start menu or by RUN(Win + R), type “diskmgmt.msc”, and hit enter.

Step 2: This will redirect you to the Device Manager, expand “Display Adapter”, right-click on your graphic driver, and then click Update Driver.

Step 3: Now, on the next screen click on the “Search Automatically for updated driver”. 

This will search the web for updates and then update your driver. After this restart your computer to get things right.

In the second method, we are going to use “Driver Easy”. It is third-party software that manages your driver and you can update it with it.

To do that you need to download and install Driver Easy. Now, launch the application, make sure that you are on the Scan tab, and then click on Scan Now.

This will search your computer for outdated drivers and then you can update all the outdated drivers from there.

Reinstall the driver:-

If the first one didn’t rectify your problem then the problem may be because of the corrupted files.  To fix that we are going to reinstall the driver.

To do that you need to follow the prescribed steps:-

Step 1: Launch the Device Manager by either searching it out of the start menu or by RUN(Win + R), type “diskmgmt.msc”, and hit enter.

Step 2: This will redirect you to the Device Manager, expand “Display Adapter”, right-click on your graphic driver, and then click Uninstall Device.

You will be asked for confirmation. Uninstall the driver and then reinstall it with the following steps:-

Step 3: From the device manager window, right-click on Display Adapter, and select Scan for Hardware changes.

This will search your web and then install it on your computer. Hopefully, this will solve your graphic driver’s problem.

Rollback the driver:-

If the previous two solutions did not work then you are dealing with an anti-climax problem, that is a bugged update.

Sometimes, a driver starts behaving mischievously after an update. This happens because of a bugged update. Therefore, the best option for you would be to roll back the driver to the previous one and wait for a stable update.

To do that you need to follow the prescribed steps:-

Step 1: Launch the Device Manager by either searching it out of the start menu or by RUN(Win + R), type “diskmgmt.msc”, and hit enter.

Step 2: This will redirect you to the Device Manager, expand “Display Adapter”, right-click on your graphic driver, and then click Properties.

Step 3: Now, go to the Drivers tab and then click Roll Back Driver.

Now, restart your computer to solve the graphic driver’s issue.

But I still want to remove Vulkan Runtime Libraries?

As mentioned earlier, you can do it but you shouldn’t. And if you insist on deleting the application then there is a simple way by which you can uninstall them.

To uninstall it you need to follow the prescribed steps:-

Step 1:  Launch Settings by either searching it out of the start menu or by Keyboard shortcut, Win + X, and then select Settings.

Step 2: From the appeared windows click on Apps.

Step 3: Now, make sure that you are on Apps & Feature tab, scroll down to reach Vulkan Runtime Libraries, click on it, and then click uninstall.

After this, restart your computer and Vulkan Runtime Libraries will be removed.

Wrap-up:-

In this article, we have seen what Vulkan Runtime Libraries are. It is a pack of software that aims to provide you essential graphics and functions.

A lot of people think of it as a virus, but it’s not. It is an essential component of your software pack and deleting it will result in unnecessary crashes of some of your apps, graphics-intensive to be exact.