Microsoft fixes the Teams app on Windows 11

[Hassan170]

Summary

 The built in Microsoft Teams app in Windows 11 will now support work/school accounts, you will not need to have 2 different Teams apps anymore.

 

Quotes

Quote

 Microsoft is unifying the Teams app on Windows 11 to support personal and work/school accounts, simplifying user experience.

 

My thoughts

Out of all the things wrong with Win11 when it came out, the Teams app was probably my biggest gripe.

 

For the simple reason being that there was absolutely no F***ING reason why the built in teams couldn't do work/school accounts. 

To top it off, it took 3 years to make a simple quality of life improvement like this. 

 

Sources

XDA-Dev Article

[LePetitPrince]

I am still struggling with the fact that they made "new teams" and updated the "old teams" but left the "old teams" installed as separate application where, whenever I need to run the Teams, it first turns on the "old teams" asking me if I want to use "new teams". But whenever I search for "Teams" in Windows search, it opens the "old teams" all over again. It's unnecessary annoying mess.

 

The worst is, the in-browser version works way better and smoother.

[Senzelian]

F U Microsh*t

That's the only appropriate reaction to anything Microsoft does

[Doobeedoo]

Very cool. It's like how Skype there was UWP and desktop one meme.

[StDragon]

3 hours ago, LePetitPrince said:

I am still struggling with the fact that they made "new teams" and updated the "old teams" but left the "old teams" installed as separate application...

There's a reason for that. It's part of a larger effort to transition everyone in M365 over to the "New Teams" and deprecate the classic version.

[Mair]

why wouldn't you just use a chromium PWA at this point? You can block all the tracking scripts, has fullsupport for notifications in a normal way, and runs WAY better than the actual app.

[LePetitPrince]

2 hours ago, StDragon said:

There's a reason for that. It's part of a larger effort to transition everyone in M365 over to the "New Teams" and deprecate the classic version.

Why should the end user care for what they are trying to do? It was presented as upgrade - which it wasn't, it was new software installed alongside the existing one. Teams is used for work. Any additional click they introduce for doing basic tasks effects productivity. And this one was unnecessary.

[StDragon]

15 minutes ago, LePetitPrince said:

Why should the end user care for what they are trying to do? It was presented as upgrade - which it wasn't, it was new software installed alongside the existing one. Teams is used for work. Any additional click they introduce for doing basic tasks effects productivity. And this one was unnecessary.

New Teams is for business (enterprise) use only at this time, so I don't think MS cares about this from a PR perspective as this isn't launched for the general consumer.

As to why they've done this with two versions in parallel; that's because MS wrote the Teams client from Electron (which is very slow) to use WebView2 (more responsive) instead. New Teams was buggy as hell (most of which haven shaken out by now). So, they couldn't just replace Classic Teams with New Teams. But they also needed feedback from the user base of Classic Teams. MS thought this was the best way to transition per their roadmap.

I'm not arguing the opinion of the matter, just stating facts as stated by Microsoft.

[wanderingfool2]

Honestly, Windows 11 was one of the worst quality of life regressions I've experienced.  I'm glad that they fixed it, but there is just so much wrong with the way Windows 11 behaves.

 

I'm still waiting for them to bring back expanded taskbar stuff.  I do like the icons being small, but man it gets really annoying have 2 windows open and needing to bring my mouse down click, move up find the window, click and then go about my way.  The whole tab solution doesn't make practical sense if I need two windows open at the same time to interact with each other.

 

Excel for the longest time needing to open another instance to create two windows...it's like they never went through a common workflow of people.

 

Finally, the Windows explorer which they rewrote and still didn't make it so that the freezing of one window (lets say accessing a file that's on a drive that's booting up but the drive is a HDD with a folder with 1000's of log files that can't be cleaned so you have to wait 1 - 2 minutes while it tries loading but all your other explorer windows are locked up)...or better yet, accessing a network drive where the computer was turned off and it takes a minute for explorer to become responsive again.

 

I am glad they fixed the teams thing, but there is so much more day to day things that Microsoft really should be fixing that should never have existed in the first place on a final released product

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I'm still waiting for them to bring back expanded taskbar stuff.  I do like the icons being small, but man it gets really annoying have 2 windows open and needing to bring my mouse down click, move up find the window, click and then go about my way.  The whole tab solution doesn't make practical sense if I need two windows open at the same time to interact with each other.

This was added back a while ago (one or two moment updates), although in a way that I think is worse than in Windows 10. The size of the taskbar icon is based on the length of the window title, so you end up with varying lengths. So programs with shorter window names will be smaller and harder to hit.

 

I still use Explorer Patcher to get that particular feature back, but at least we have a decent option built into Windows now. It feels bad that it took them 2 years to partially fix something that wasn't broken until they fucked it up. 

 

I don't understand how someone can use Windows with the "always combine" feature. Do people not run multiple copies of the same program? It isn't the default so I assume people just put up with it. 

 

 

 

 

I don't really get the hate the new Teams client gets for how it was installed. I thought it was great that they let you run both apps alongside each other. Especially in the beginning when certain features didn't work in the new client. Once you had everything working in the new client you could just uninstall the old one. 

It was only when you had both installed and accidentally clicked the old one you ran into annoyances. I admit I ran into that a few times, but I prefer that over not being able to easily revert back. 

[wanderingfool2]

27 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

This was added back a while ago (one or two moment updates), although in a way that I think is worse than in Windows 10. The size of the taskbar icon is based on the length of the window title, so you end up with varying lengths. So programs with shorter window names will be smaller and harder to hit.

hmm, neat, well I stand corrected on that...although after a while I just stopped looking for it...still the fact that it took like 2 years is inexcusable.

 

29 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I don't understand how someone can use Windows with the "always combine" feature. Do people not run multiple copies of the same program? It isn't the default so I assume people just put up with it. 

I agree, and the answer I think is a lot of people don't try to be efficient (at least at the work places I've noticed) and most people stick to a webbrowser which has a good amount of tabs.  I actually find some of my daily tasks always to be slower having to switch in Windows 11 style windows or the always combine.

 

Still in Windows 11 I'm still faced daily by annoyances that Windows 10 did have...XP -> 7, tons of features that if I moved from 7 -> XP my life would be worse, 7 -> W10 same deal, I wouldn't return to W7.  10 -> 11, every day I wish I was back on 10.  I can't really think of any redeeming qualities that are deal breakers

[StDragon]

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

...the Windows explorer which they rewrote and still didn't make it so that the freezing of one window (lets say accessing a file that's on a drive that's booting up but the drive is a HDD with a folder with 1000's of log files that can't be cleaned so you have to wait 1 - 2 minutes while it tries loading but all your other explorer windows are locked up)...or better yet, accessing a network drive where the computer was turned off and it takes a minute for explorer to become responsive again.

So the option "Launch folder windows in a separate process" didn't help in that regard?

[Hassan170]

18 hours ago, Mair said:

why wouldn't you just use a chromium PWA at this point? You can block all the tracking scripts, has fullsupport for notifications in a normal way, and runs WAY better than the actual app.

Huh, that actually makes more sense now I think about it. 

16 hours ago, StDragon said:

As to why they've done this with two versions in parallel; that's because MS wrote the Teams client from Electron (which is very slow) to use WebView2 (more responsive) instead.

Ahhh, that explains why I had so much issues with teams and not getting notifications

[LePetitPrince]

17 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't really get the hate the new Teams client gets for how it was installed. I thought it was great that they let you run both apps alongside each other. Especially in the beginning when certain features didn't work in the new client. Once you had everything working in the new client you could just uninstall the old one. 

It was only when you had both installed and accidentally clicked the old one you ran into annoyances. I admit I ran into that a few times, but I prefer that over not being able to easily revert back. 

 

...or they shouldn't roll out features they do not fully support. Just an idea. My organization pays for the software, it does not pay to be beta tester.

[StDragon]

7 hours ago, Hassan170 said:

Huh, that actually makes more sense now I think about it. 

Ahhh, that explains why I had so much issues with teams and not getting notifications

Yes, all sorts of issues in the beginning such as spontaneous crashing of the app, not receiving notifications on the mobile app, not being able to transfer the meeting from mobile app to PC and vice versa...etc.

If you were an early adopter of New Teams, these issues can be remedied by either clearing the cache folder manually (C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache), or simply uninstalling the UWP app from "Start Menu --> Settings --> Apps --> Installed apps". Once uninstalled, be sure that the MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder no longer exists before reinstalling the latest version again.

The above mentioned should be gone now. If you've never installed or used the New Teams yet, then the current release shouldn't give you any trouble.

 

19 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't really get the hate the new Teams client gets for how it was installed. I thought it was great that they let you run both apps alongside each other.

 

Speaking of UWPs... Welcome to sysadmin hell. The hate is real among those that deploy and manage enterprise apps. New Teams installation is half-assed to deal with.


There's a special kindred spirit of the damned that have experienced this.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

Speaking of UWPs

Pretty sure it's not an UWP. 

 

 

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

Welcome to sysadmin hell. The hate is real among those that deploy and manage enterprise apps. New Teams installation is half-assed to deal with.

I haven't heard any issues from the client teams regarding the rollout of new Teams. 

I've heard that some customers have had issues with the new teams client, but we have successfully rolled out Teams on several customers. Just uninstall the old Teams client if you have verified that the new one works well. 

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Pretty sure it's not an UWP.

It is.

New Teams won't be found under "Programs and Features" like Classic Teams.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I haven't heard any issues from the client teams regarding the rollout of new Teams.

It's not an issue as M365 will manage the tenant and deployment for you (Microsoft-controlled) by default.

The issue is when you've disabled New Teams within your M365 tenant (admin-managed) and needing to test internally first before a mass-deployment. So at that point you're manually targeting machines with the MSIX file; and there's all sorts of issues deploying that with 3rd party software management platforms outside of SCCM.

[IkeaGnome]

I'm ready for this to come to our jobsite.... The amount of times I open up one of the two wrong Teams because I'm half paying attention is kind of hilarious..

And I count "Classic work or school" as the wrong one too.

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 3/16/2024 at 4:23 PM, LePetitPrince said:

 

...or they shouldn't roll out features they do not fully support. Just an idea. My organization pays for the software, it does not pay to be beta tester.

ok, but then use something else?

 

otherwise your organization isnt an organization its simply a Microsoft hostage. 

[LePetitPrince]

6 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

ok, but then use something else?

 

otherwise your organization isnt an organization its simply a Microsoft hostage. 

It is Microsoft hostage at this point. As we all are in some way. We're all tied to windows for start because of the professional software not built by Microsoft, but built only for windows. We are tied to Microsoft office because of the collaboration with other institutions and the need for everything to be editable and displayed correctly.

 

In governmental institutions it's hard to change momentum. Especially if you're just a piece of the puzzle. Nevertheless, the government pays for the software and services, and it's only rightful for Microsoft to respect the users and do their job as we all pay them to do. If the organization is paying customer, don't force them to be beta testers. It's hurtful for the productivity hence making additional costs to the organization itself.

[jagdtigger]

41 minutes ago, LePetitPrince said:

We're all tied to windows for start because of the professional software not built by Microsoft, but built only for windows. We are tied to Microsoft office because of the collaboration with other institutions and the need for everything to be editable and displayed correctly.

You just wrote the exact reason why MS(py) will never respect their customers. They are a monopoly and they know you cannot go anywhere else so they just do whatever they want without consequences....