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.
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?
ChristianBergstrom Yes the updates would continue, and Teams will offer you an update available to your ring with a higher version number, so effectively you will fall back in line with support from that point.
Teams updates are deployed on a percentage basis, first 10% and so on. This is both to avoid load at the Microsoft end and to allow rollouts to be paused if a significant support issues is created. I don't know but assume that is what happened in December, a versions was rolling out then deployments stopped. The point being the mechanism is there to protect people and the service.
PDSDavid I'm sure that Premiere will come up with a supported answer, that warning means you are reaching the limit, 90 days I think. If you just download the Teams client again doesn't that take you back to more recent version? You can deploy that however you like. Also if you look in the log you will see the URL that Teams is checking for a version (it looks a lot like those Bec is creating but with your current version number), if you log into Teams in a browser then open a tab to that page you might be able to see what in your infra is causing the block, the service will return some JSON if there is an upgrade, and the location the client should fetch it from.
