Installing Teams

[enjay]

We're starting to roll out Teams across the whole school. Mindful the desktop app offers some additional features (including an element of bandwidth reduction, presumably) I started looking at deploying it. Buried somewhat (on the page about using GPO to disable auto-launch) is the paragraph "If devices in your organization are shared by multiple users, be aware that Teams is installed separately for each user that signs into that device. Installations of Teams average about 500 mb, so hard disk space, as well network bandwidth for updates, might become an issue for these shared devices installed with Teams. In cases where shared devices are used by a significant number of users, you might want to consider not installing Teams on those shared devices."

 

This would rule out installing it in our IT Suites, etc. but the odd location of the warning makes me dubious. Has anyone installed Teams across all their computers, and if so, did you encounter this issue?

[Koldov]

I believe it's an %APPDATA% thing.... Creates an install in there for each user, I can't remember the brilliant reason why...

 

Although IIRC I'm sure I've seen there is a way to do a machine install.

 

I'm sure there are threads on here, or someone who knows will chime in.

[3s-gtech]

We simply don't install it on shared devices - it's functional enough in Edge for students to use. The disk space used would fill our smaller SSDs. We do install it on staff laptops though.

 

Part of the reason for doing it via AppData is so that users have permission to update it. Of course, SRP and Applocker may have other ideas...

[kennysarmy]

We're starting to roll out Teams across the whole school. Mindful the desktop app offers some additional features (including an element of bandwidth reduction, presumably) I started looking at deploying it. Buried somewhat (on the page about using GPO to disable auto-launch) is the paragraph "If devices in your organization are shared by multiple users, be aware that Teams is installed separately for each user that signs into that device. Installations of Teams average about 500 mb, so hard disk space, as well network bandwidth for updates, might become an issue for these shared devices installed with Teams. In cases where shared devices are used by a significant number of users, you might want to consider not installing Teams on those shared devices."

 

This would rule out installing it in our IT Suites, etc. but the odd location of the warning makes me dubious. Has anyone installed Teams across all their computers, and if so, did you encounter this issue?

 

Are the additional features not more useful to the staff?

 

We only install to our Teacher PC's, so the number of different logons is limited.

[mavhc]

Weird how Chrome manages to update itself without having 800 copies installed, guess Google is better at writing Windows software than Microsoft.

 

500MBs is only if you don't actually use it, mine's at 1.5GB now

[Katy]

We have the machine installer rolled out everywhere but we removed the registry entries that install it at logon, instead there's a desktop shortcut to a script which either installs then launches, or if it's already there, launches. That way only people who want it have it using up the disk space. We've not had any issues with machines running out of disk space and they're all on 128GB or 256GB SSDs (mostly 128GB).

 

I hear they are moving away from Electron for a future version of Teams so hopefully this won't be another "uses up all the disk space in AppData" creation.

[Boredguy]

we have it deployed, but as we delete profiles on logoff for most stations it's never been an issue

[enjay]

we have it deployed, but as we delete profiles on logoff for most stations it's never been an issue

 

That was my thinking after reading other replies here. Deleting profiles is probably something I should set up anyway!

[Boredguy]

For some office workstations/Loan laptops, we have a dedicated GPO policy to not clean up profiles, but otherwise Windows is set to delete them on logoff. Does mean students using Publisher or non Office applications and working on files need to remember to save their file and for it to sync with OneDrive before they click logoff, but they get the message after loosing a file or two

[Guest Guest]

I deployed it via using SCCM in VDI mode, meaning it installs to program files instead of app data.ut has to be updated manually though

[mavhc]

For some office workstations/Loan laptops, we have a dedicated GPO policy to not clean up profiles, but otherwise Windows is set to delete them on logoff. Does mean students using Publisher or non Office applications and working on files need to remember to save their file and for it to sync with OneDrive before they click logoff, but they get the message after loosing a file or two

 

Solution, don't log off, just lock the screen

[enjay]

I deployed it via using SCCM in VDI mode, meaning it installs to program files instead of app data.ut has to be updated manually though

 

I wondered about doing it that way, as it seemed like it would work, but I couldn't find any instructions on it which made me question whether it actually worked.

[Guest Guest]

I wondered about doing it that way, as it seemed like it would work, but I couldn't find any instructions on it which made me question whether it actually worked.

 

I'm using the attached script to push it out and it works well, just down the regular MSI from Microsoft and run the script

 

 

Install-Teams.ps1

Edited March 22, 2021 by Guest

[mavhc]

If you install the machine wide msi and delete profiles, remember to update the machine wide msi often

[chazzy2501]

I'm not putting it on pupil PCs as the additional features are minor (for the attendee).

 

Although Teachers are standard users they can install Teams just fine on their 1:1 laptops. I said it was optional in the training but most have done it.

[enjay]

I'm not putting it on pupil PCs as the additional features are minor (for the attendee).

 

I'm told the Pear Deck add-on is much more stable through the desktop application.