Teams updates - How do you do it?

[CHiLL]

We deployed Teams out to our staff using the MSI via SCCM (msiexec /i Teams_windows_x64.msi /q OPTIONS=”noAutoStart=true"). That's all well and good, however all of our users are now getting messages at the top of their Teams window saying "Looks like you're running an old version of Teams. Update the app to continue to using Teams on this device".

 

Some research suggests that this message appears for client versions older than 3 months and the app is supposed to auto-update every two weeks. Microsoft say that Teams won't auto-update if it's installed to the Program Files folder, but only will from when installed to the AppData folder. Ours is installed to AppData (the default location), so that doesn't seem to be the reason. If I press the download link, it'll download the setup file and I can install it that way. This is affecting users both on-site and off-site.

 

How are you managing the Teams client updates?

[Steve21]

Any AV/SRP etc that might be blocking it from auto running?

 

Steve

[psydii]

Machine Wide installer, which puts a running copy into everyone's AppData folders. These auto-update.

 

Then we ran out of space on the shared devices. So we removed local Teams entirely.

 

Staff kept Teams on their laptops.

 

Student/Shared machines then had to use the Web version.

 

Now during lockdown 3 we are encouraging onsite students to download and install Team (into their AppData) as for the moment each student has a designated seat and therefore only one user per computer (well 1 user per 2 computers for social distancing).

 

Longer term there is a method for forcing to run out of Program Files, but this would require us to deploy a new MSI every couple of weeks - a PITA. Why it can't work like Chrome/Edge I don't know.

[ITGuyNW]

Yeah we have started seeing the "old version" message.

 

So they want each profile to have an extra 300mb+ ... nice little hit to server space!

[Disease]

PDQ Deploy for the win.

[DavR]

I was considering rolling out the Teams client in our organisation, for the one or two people who use it for meetings. Reading this thread, I am reconsidering!

 

I've already noticed 500MB+ of temp files being dumped in roaming AppData for the folks that do use it.... tempted to push people to only use the web version.

[CHiLL]

Any AV/SRP etc that might be blocking it from auto running?

 

Steve

We're using Microsoft's SCEP, which I don't believe will restrict Teams from updating and have no SRPs in-place for staff.

 

Machine Wide installer, which puts a running copy into everyone's AppData folders. These auto-update.

 

Then we ran out of space on the shared devices. So we removed local Teams entirely.

 

Staff kept Teams on their laptops.

 

Student/Shared machines then had to use the Web version.

 

Now during lockdown 3 we are encouraging onsite students to download and install Team (into their AppData) as for the moment each student has a designated seat and therefore only one user per computer (well 1 user per 2 computers for social distancing).

 

Longer term there is a method for forcing to run out of Program Files, but this would require us to deploy a new MSI every couple of weeks - a PITA. Why it can't work like Chrome/Edge I don't know.

That's pretty much what we've done. Machine-Wide installer for staff, which installs to AppData and students using school computers, use the web version.

 

PDQ Deploy for the win.

Does that mean you're manually deploying a new MSI when you need to deploy updates?

[Roberto]

The MSI installer that installs to program files delivers am installer to the device that then gets deployed to the user's profile if the user logs in and does not already have Teams installed. This isn't how you save profile storage space.

[ITGuyNW]

PDQ Deploy for the win.

 

We use PDQ however not PDQ Link, so with most teachers at home I can't update easily. If only I had looked into PDQ Link earlier..

[ITGuyNW]

The MSI installer that installs to program files delivers am installer to the device that then gets deployed to the user's profile if the user logs in and does not already have Teams installed. This isn't how you save profile storage space.

 

Yeah it's utterly ridiculous and Microsoft recommend 3gb per user profile...

 

So we either deploy to Appdata, which will take up lots of room however auto updates or

 

Stick with where we are, have it installed machine-only and manually update every three months..

[psydii]

If you are braver/have more time than I, the tricks in here might work: https://james-rankin.com/articles/microsoft-teams-on-citrix-virtual-apps-and-desktops-part-1-installing-the-damned-thing/

[AJWhite1970]

Not my work and I can’t remember where I pinched it from to credit them, but I run this powershell script for all users on login which updates the users Teams preference file hidden in appdata to stop the app from loading on startup (which greatly improves login times) and forces updates. Works really well

 

 

$configFile = "$ENV:APPDATA\Microsoft\Teams\desktop-config.json"

try {

$fileBuffer = Get-Content $configFile -ErrorAction Stop

}

catch {

exit 1

}

Stop-Process -Name Teams -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

# Disable Autostart

$fileBuffer = $fileBuffer -replace '"openAtLogin":true', '"openAtLogin":false'

# Set to auto update

$fileBuffer = $fileBuffer -replace '"silentUpdateTriggered":false', '"silentUpdateTriggered":true'

$fileBuffer = $fileBuffer -replace '"registerAsIMProvider":false', '"registerAsIMProvider":true'

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\IM Providers" -Name DefaultIMApp -Value Teams -PropertyType STRING -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContin

$fileBuffer | Set-Content $configFile -Force