Instead of immediately trying to load the driver, the application must check the Windows Registry for pending restart operations.
The message "WinDivert driver cannot be installed — you must restart your computer" appears when software that uses the WinDivert packet-capture driver (commonly VPNs, network filtering tools, or traffic-modifying utilities) fails to load or update the kernel driver and the installer requests a reboot to complete driver installation or replacement. Instead of immediately trying to load the driver,
Ensure that you are running the WinDivert driver installation as an administrator: Go to Windows Security > Device Security >
If none of the above work, the driver may be permanently flagged by Windows’ : network filtering tools
Restart your computer and try launching your application again Use windivertctl : If the application includes it, run windivertctl.exe uninstall from an elevated command prompt to clear the driver state Check Antivirus/Security Blocks : Some antivirus programs, like , are known to be incompatible with WinDivert
This feature often blocks older or non-WHQL signed drivers from loading. Go to Windows Security > Device Security > Core isolation details and try turning off Memory integrity temporarily to see if the driver installs.