Media Keys and Teams notifications

graemec5 as a workaround, update the teams autostart post in the registry.

It's located in the following path

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Key is named "com.squirrel.Teams.Teams"

If you modify the --process-start-args to contain the "-disable-features=HardwareMediaKey" value, then it should be set when launched on startup.

On my computer, the full value is

C:\Users\My Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\Update.exe --processStart "Teams.exe" --process-start-args "-disable-features=HardwareMediaKeyHandling --system-initiated"

graemec5Like you, I suffered from this. For me, this has fixed the issue:

try starting Teams with -disable-features=HardwareMediaKeyHandling

eg. C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\current\Teams.exe -disable-features=HardwareMediaKeyHandling

If you have e.g. a start menu shortcut (or other shortcut for teams), you can edit it and add it as a (commandline) argument so you wont have to remember it. The solution mentions Windows, but for me it also works on Linux, which is really nice!

Taken from here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msteams/forum/msteams_tfb-msteams_persett-msteams_subnotif/teams-and-media-keys/136320bb-7af0-4bdc-8743-56608ff576b2?page=2

I found that teams take a weird priority in windows over the Play/Pause Media. 
The fix I found was to use Alt with Play/Pause Media.

This would alternate which media the Play/Pause Media was using.

If interested in using one key I created a keybind with AutoHotkey to automate this to one key press.
In this case, F2 is my key of choice. 

Hope this helps. 

f2::
Send {LAlt down}{Media_Play_Pause}{LAlt up}
return


graemec5 

I had some fun automating the process of changing the Teams executable. First iterations took about 10 to 15 minutes to complete but this one does the job in about 5 seconds. You don't have to use it if you don't trust it but it sets the original EXE aside so if something wrong happens, you can just replace the resulting file from this script with the original

# Getting the filepath for Teams.exe
$FilePath = Join-Path -Path $env:LOCALAPPDATA -ChildPath "Microsoft\Teams\current\Teams.exe"

# Killing all instances of Teams.exe
Get-Process | ? { $_.Path -eq $FilePath} | Stop-Process -Force -Confirm:$False

# Get the Hex and Binary format of the option "HardwareMediaKeyHandling"
$Option = "HardwareMediaKeyHandling"
$HWMKeyHandlingHexArray = ($Option.ToCharArray() | % { [String]::Format("{0:X2}", [System.Convert]::ToUInt32($_)) }) -Join "-"
$HWMKeyHandlingByteArray = [Byte[]]($HWMKeyHandlingHexArray.split("-") | % { "0x{0}" -f $_ })

# Other needed variables
$ValueOffset = 8
$OldValue = 1
$NewValue = 0

# Get Teams as ByteArray and Hex String
$Bytes = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes($FilePath);
$Hex = [System.BitConverter]::ToString($Bytes)

# Get the location of the option in de HexString
$HexIndex = $Hex.IndexOf($HWMKeyHandlingHexArray)

# Calculate the index of the hex to the index of the byte array
# Account for the dashes in the string
$Index = $HexIndex * 2 / 3
# Account for the fact that HEX makes couples of 2 characters for a byte
$Index = $Index / 2

# Build in some safety
$GotIt = $True

For ($i = 0 ; $i -lt $HWMKeyHandlingByteArray.Count ; $i++) {
    If ($Bytes[($Index + $i)] -ne $HWMKeyHandlingByteArray[$i]) {
        $GotIt = $False
    }
}

If ($GotIt -eq $False) {
    "Something went wrong calculating the exact location of '{0}'" -f $Option
    Break
}
Else {
    # Checking for the value of the option
    $ValueIndex = $Index + $HWMKeyHandlingByteArray.count + $ValueOffset
    
    If ($Bytes[$ValueIndex] -eq $OldValue) {
        # Actually setting the value
        "Changing the value of option '{0}' from {1} to {2}" -f $Option, $OldValue, $NewValue
        $Bytes[$ValueIndex] = $NewValue

        # Set aside the old file for if something went wrong despite the checks in this script
        $File = Get-Item -Path $FilePath
        $CopyFilePath = Join-Path -Path $File.DirectoryName -ChildPath ("{0}.old{1}" -f $File.BaseName,$File.Extension)
        [Void](Copy-Item -Path $FilePath -Destination $CopyFilePath -Force:$False -Confirm:$False)

        # Write new teams.exe
        [System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($FilePath, $Bytes)
    }
    ElseIf ($Bytes[$ValueIndex] -eq $NewValue) {
        "No need to update the value: '{0}' is already set to {1}" -f $Option, $NewValue
    }
    Else {
        "Something isn't correct, the value for option '{0}' is neither {1} or {2} but {3}" -f $Option, $OldValue, $NewValue, $Bytes[$ValueIndex]
    }
}

This HEX editing method is the only workable one I've found. It does **bleep** up the Digital Signature so it could get flagged by some EDRs but nothing yet from FortiEDR here.

I get Teams calls all day and listen to music on Spotify. I got so tired of this stupid problem that I wrote an autohotkey script which redirects the media buttons to Spotify shortcuts. It may be more verbose than is necessary - I'm not an AHK expert by any means. You can just put a shortcut to this in your startup folder (with Autohotkey installed, of course) and it will activate at bootup. I was so excited about the QOL improvement (I was closing and reopening Teams after every call!) I figured I would share it here. I know not everyone will have the permissions to run something like that, but for those that do, this is a simple permanent fix.

#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0

If WinExist("ahk_exe Teams.exe") and WinExist("ahk_exe Spotify.exe")
{  
    Media_Play_Pause::SpotifyKey("{Space}")
    Media_Next::SpotifyKey("^{Right}")
    Media_Prev::SpotifyKey("^{Left}")
}

SpotifyKey(key)
{
    active := WinExist("A")
    spotifyWin := WinExist("ahk_exe Spotify.exe")
    DetectHiddenWindows("On")
    ControlFocus(spotifyWin)
    ControlSend key,, "ahk_exe Spotify.exe"
    if (WinExist(active))
    {
        ControlFocus(active)
    }
    DetectHiddenWindows("Off")
}

It seems there's an issue with media keys and Teams notifications during calls. When using media keys to pause music, the notification sound doesn't always dismiss, leading to it playing when you resume music. It can be annoying, and you may want to check for updates or settings to address this. Consider giving feedback to Microsoft for potential improvements.

Regards: Faizan