Forum Discussion
New Teams on terminal servers
We have Teams installed on our terminal servers (Windows Server 2022) as well as locally. The video and voice functions aren't usable on the terminal servers, but everything else works (most notably the Outlook addin).
I've been letting users decided whether to try the new Teams. I've been using it locally for months and not recently had any issues. It initially seemed OK on the terminal servers too.
I decided to set it as the default in the Teams admin centre recently, and in setting up a couple of new user profiles on a terminal server the problems have started to come to light. Specifically:
1) Teams doesn't want to update - it displays a restart and update icon on the menu, but this doesn't actually cause it to update. Even logging in as an admin and using right-click run as administrator doesn't make any difference. The standalone installer uses an msix package, which doesn't work on WIndows Server (I am aware that there are ways to get it to run these packages, but it shouldn't be necessary and I'd rather avoid it for now if I can)
2) The Outlook addin doesn't work (as in doesn't appear in Outlook).
I've looked for Microsoft documentation, and all I can find is this:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/new-teams-vdi-requirements-deploy
Which doesn't seen to specifically refer to local terminal servers at all! Assuming that much of what applies to AVD will also apply, I've checked the registry settings it lists and they all appear correct.
Today I have created a new test VM, Server 2022, terminal server role, and installed Office using the normal XML config file method (using the latest available .exe for this). Office installed, and as expected only included the new Teams, not the old one. Still doesn't work properly - even after a clean install Teams wasn't up to date and the update now button didn't work. Manually closing and opening Teams caused it to update in this case (that doesn't work with the live terminal servers), but it's unclear whether this is going to continue to work reliably, or why it won't update on the live servers.
The Oulook addin doesn't appear at all, although the settings and registry entries as listed in the link above all appear correct.
Anyone got any ideas? The lack of mention in the documentation suggrsts that - as usual - Microsoft isn't making any effort to accommodate those using on-prem session hosts.
Thanks
DavidYorkshire - I'm also trying to get New Teams working on RDS environment atleast at the same level as Classic Teams (no video conferencing). As you and others have reported, there often is an "Update" button on the title bar but clicking it does nothing. In my case checking the version of New Teams, it appears that it is actually updated. My New Teams shows the "Update" button but checking its version (Settings -> About Teams), its fully updated. Go here for update history: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/teams-app-versioning
Separate of that issue, we're also seeing that New Teams randomly closes, sometimes several times a day. This can be troubling since the Tray icon remains until you mouse over it, then it disappears. Users then need to manually restart Teams.
We are currently having the same issues in our RDS environment.
OS: Windows Server 2022
Issue1: New Teams has the up-to-date version, but the "Update" button still shows up on the title bar. Clicking it will close Teams, and Teams never restarts itself. Manually starting Teams, and the "Update" button will show up again.
Issue2: Occasionally New Teams quits unexpectedly without doing anything.Both issues you note are the same ones we still experience as well in RDS. Its likely a result of how they've re-written Teams into an appX and how those behave (or misbehave) in a multi-user environment of RDS.
I also find that it won't auto-start when a user first logs in even though its fully set to do so. Our users need to manually start after they login each time. At least when running it does seem to work correctly most of the time.
It is sad that MS doesn't seem to provide any new support for RDS session host environment. They want everyone to go the VDI route.
- While i have stopped Teams constantly closing, further testing shows that all new-Teams users will show the Update button if any one single Teams user with it open doesn't have the latest Outlook plugin installed. In my test profile it says Update but I have confirmed both Teams and the Outlook add-in are up to date. But other users profiles the Outlook plugin has not updated yet so new Teams says Update for everyone. On my test profile I found renaming the outlook plugin folder allowed the latest to install, so i am going to try that on other profiles to confirm. At this point I just need to get every profile up to date and see if the Update button goes away, and then see what happens the next time an update for Teams or the outlook plugin is rolled out.
davidtg I have managed to stop the issue with Teams closing itself multiple times a day on RDS (while it fails to update Teams itself or the Outlook plugin) by adding the earlier suggested GP settings (allow all trusted apps to install, allow deployment operations in special profiles) as well as
Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Installer: Set Enabled and set Disable Windows Installer to never.
Update button is there this morning in Teams and in the next maintenance window i'll manually run that and see what happens, and also probably do the full removal and DISM install method suggested by Jeff.
DavidYorkshire we have the same issue. New Teams sits with Update button but never successfully updates. Going through event viewer it seems to be related to not updating an old version of the Outlook add-in, however removing the add-in from a specific users Outlook didn't stop the issue happening. We thought we had stopped it by renaming the outlook admin folder(s) in appdata\local but it started again. New Teams actually tries to restart itself multiple times during the day to install for this user and other users but it never succeeds. As classic teams is being removed we really need a fix for this as its crippling a client,
- We've still got the support case with Microsoft running (up to about 4 months now!), and still going round in circles with endless requests for more log files, screenshots, etc.
Fernando_KlurfanMicrosoft
DavidYorkshire
Teams Meeting Add In has a known issue in Windows Server environments, discussed here
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/new-teams-meeting-add-in-is-missing-from-outlook/8e9531ce-3852-4a5b-ac1f-5a3f5d3bacf0?page=6
We plan to fix this, and also document the workaround for manual installation of the MSI- We've still got issues with it not updating on the terminal servers - and manual install of updates doesn't work either - had a support case open with Microsoft since January and the support is as bad as ever - just keep going round and round sending yet more log files, screenshots, reinstalling, etc.
Maybe one day Microsoft will realise that it's best to get a product completed and properly tested before widely releasing it. Will there be support for WebRTC redirect in the new Teams, with Terminal Server? It seems AV-Optimization works on all Platforms, but not yet on simple Remote Desktop Session Hosts.
- Fernando_KlurfanNo, Terminal Server / pure RDS is not supported with A/V optimization.
Has the fix for New Teams Meeting add-in running in 2022 RDS server environment been released yet?
