Forum Discussion
Force Teams desktop client update
I would suggest you check out the recently shared blog that explains a little about the update process at Why do I not see a feature but my colleague does? - Release Processes Microsoft Teams.
As explained it's entirely normal to have different versions while deployments are happening slowly, things are a little complex at the moment due to some delays, an apparent rollback and new versions through TAP and Public Preview. So if your users are guests in other tenants that may be in TAP you could be getting versions from there, I'm a guest in the microsoft tenant so my versions vary wildly.
As PDSDavid correctly explained the Machine Wide installer is more like a stub to create the installation for each user. Also the regular msi will be a little behind the newest version you may see, it trails rollout and doesn't lead.
It is quite unlikely that any specific build would cause the issues you describe, and that would seem to be largely verified by it remaining after a reinstall. I would be looking into driver versions perhaps.
Teams update process is unorthodox in enterprise, more like a consumer app, but this is deliberate from Microsoft to manage the far faster pace of change in what is really a web application in a wrapper. In my experience across Teams at many organisation it is very robust, the only issues I've seen are in locations where network restrictions are preventing access to the download service. Microsoft were planning to provide some more admin control, allowing you to control the day of the week and so on, but I think this has been pushed down the list due to priority works to support Teams being used by schools during the pandemic.
ChristianBergstrom I don't think this is a very good idea, it's quite possible you could get a version that isn't going to be deployed to your deployment ring and therefore wouldn't be supported.
It's pretty unlikely that anyone is stuck, I've only seen it where there are firewall blocks preventing download. I would suggest the following to check if updates are fine
1. Click on the Me menu and Check for Updates
2. Go to the Teams icon in the status area, right click and choose Get Logs
3. Look for a message that says "App up to Date"
As long as that's there then there are no updates being offered to your client at the moment, so you are fine as you are. Teams versions are an increasing number, but only certain version make it to the widespread deployment ring which is supported. For example if you opt in to Public Preview or TAP programmes then you get more frequent and less tested client versions.
There has been a long gap in updates, it's entirely correct, don't mess with it. There would be an article on Docs if this was a supported proceedure.
StevenC365 Your faith in MS to just get everyone onto the best version for them is .. interesting. Given MSs history of just abandoning clients with major issues due to bugs, it seems unlikely that they are going to do any differently with Teams.
Indeed, I manage around 450 desktops and I see a wide range of versions installed going from 1.2 through to 1.4. I reinstalled my own desktop yesterday with the latest version on the MS page and I've ended up with 1.4.0.2879, while I have desktops which are running 1.4.0.3484 - which I can't find anywhere. My machine also says I have the latest version, which is obviously wrong as I had a more recent version before the wipe and reinstall.
I was forced to wipe Teams from my own machine because it was crashing every few hours. Nothing was displayed when it crashed. The window just closed. Wipe and reinstall has made no difference. It still crashes. So do colleagues.
I would like to get everyone up to the same version and to not use the profile installed version... but no, this is almost impossible. In theory when you install the machine-wide version then the profile version should be removed. Never happens. Updating the machine wide will sometimes result in the profile version also updating, sometimes not.
The idea that MS will just manage from the cloud this is laughable.
What was wrong with just having an MSI installable product, like every other product?
I would suggest you check out the recently shared blog that explains a little about the update process at Why do I not see a feature but my colleague does? - Release Processes Microsoft Teams.
As explained it's entirely normal to have different versions while deployments are happening slowly, things are a little complex at the moment due to some delays, an apparent rollback and new versions through TAP and Public Preview. So if your users are guests in other tenants that may be in TAP you could be getting versions from there, I'm a guest in the microsoft tenant so my versions vary wildly.
As PDSDavid correctly explained the Machine Wide installer is more like a stub to create the installation for each user. Also the regular msi will be a little behind the newest version you may see, it trails rollout and doesn't lead.
It is quite unlikely that any specific build would cause the issues you describe, and that would seem to be largely verified by it remaining after a reinstall. I would be looking into driver versions perhaps.
Teams update process is unorthodox in enterprise, more like a consumer app, but this is deliberate from Microsoft to manage the far faster pace of change in what is really a web application in a wrapper. In my experience across Teams at many organisation it is very robust, the only issues I've seen are in locations where network restrictions are preventing access to the download service. Microsoft were planning to provide some more admin control, allowing you to control the day of the week and so on, but I think this has been pushed down the list due to priority works to support Teams being used by schools during the pandemic.
>It is quite unlikely that any specific build would cause the issues you describe,
>and that would seem to be largely verified by it remaining after a reinstall.
>I would be looking into driver versions perhaps.
It is *extremely* likely that a specific build would cause the issues I describe. Its called a bug. Thats why we update software. Its the principal reason for updating software.
Drivers being out of date is just being ridiculous. You can always say that about anything. Why would only Teams, not much more than an advanced chat app, be affected by this magic driver issue when all the other stuff, using more advanced system features, is stable. Also, in my own case I know my driver set is up to date as I do update whenever something is available. On a client machine it would be less often, but in my case its all up to date and Teams still crashes constantly with no log.
I'm basing this on supporting hundreds of desktops. If applications like Solidworks, office or the myriad of programming tools people use crashed, the users would be on the phone. They're not, but a lot of people do report that they missed teams chat messages because it was closed. Just Teams, which makes it pretty unlikely that all those desktops (with different models, different makes and different drivers) have issues which just happen to affect Teams and only Teams.
IanMurphy48 Hi, thanks for your input. Bear in mind that it isn't necessary to all be on the same version though as it's the availability of features that really matters. But I do understand your frustration.
There's an option for MSI installation just to put it out there https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/msi-deployment
My personal opinion is that C2R and the update channels is a massive improvement compared to MSI installations. Unfortunately Teams has it's own update flow which is kind of out of control, even though you can choose to deploy it with M365 apps for ex. you can't be granular.
ChristianBergstrom I have no problem with having the users running 1.3.0.3xx or 1.3.0.2xx versions, but what I see happening is the same as is happening with Win10. Most installations just update, but you end up with a significant number which are just orphaned and never update. With win10 you download an iso and update from that and... no problem, so why didn't they auto update?
I'm seeing the same with Teams. Hundreds are running a more or less recent version, but then maybe a couple of dozen machines are seemingly 'stuck'.
The msi installer simply does nothing to either the machine wide or profile installed versions when executed on these machines. Frustrating.
- Steven Collier
Let’s say people use this not recommended way and get a not supported version as it’s out of the ring. Shouldn’t that be corrected with the next automatic update? As I mentioned, I’ve used it myself and my Teams desktop app is updating accordingly.ChristianBergstrom, I have also updated my Windows desktop Teams client using this 'forced' method and ongoing updates are indeed working. In my case, I did so to take advantage of a new Teams feature (7x7 grid) a few months ago when selecting 'Check for updates' in-app wasn't updating to a newer version while my colleagues already were using a newer app version (and downloading a new installer directly from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/download-app wasn't making any difference either).
For completeness, as this post doesn't yet mention it, I thought it might be helpful to reference https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/troubleshoot-installation#troubleshoot-update-issues, which explains some troubleshooting steps related to Teams app updates that you might want to try before 'forcing' an update.
If the above troubleshooting steps don't help resolve the issue, I would suggest it's best to raise a case with Microsoft Support 👍rs_oakford Hi, thanks for the input! Good to hear that you also used this procedure and that the updates are working as intended afterwards. I would really appreciate some input from StevenC365 on that. Come on Steven, you can do it! 🙂
And I agree with you rs_oakford about the MS docs troubleshooting. It should be a first step.
The main reason I posted the above was only to provide an option to "force". Not to recommend it as something you should do as a routine to bypass the automatic update flow.
Microsoft_Teams_team what's your take on this?
StevenC365 we have 500 users with the error "Looks like you'r on an old version of Teams. Update in X days to continue using the app"
I'm sure the issue is environmental, but Premier support has been running in circles for the last 2 weeks. and I'm down to the wire on the error message.
as for not in our ring.. I'm pulling the version number from an updated machine in our tenant, so hopefully that version is good for us.
the documented locations of logs.txt comes up empty for most of us. we will look if the method you show works. as if we can track down the error we can fix the root cause.
right now I'm just trying to get us past this error, so a manual install via login script is my backup plan if premier cant get a better solutions in the next 24 hours.StevenC365 Hey Steven, fair enough. But tend to disagree to some extent.
I'm not saying it's a supported procedure. I'm aware of several end-user experiences where they have received the "app up to date" when checking for updates, still being on a version from say November, missing settings such as "Accounts & orgs" for example. Not being able to add another account.
Obviously nothing official but as I experienced it myself thought it could help someone out.
