The Chat Notification Badge That Won't Die

This is what worked for me to remove the number from the Teams icon in the Taskbar.

1. Go to Windows Settings > Personalisation > Taskbar.  Under Taskbar items, set Chat to On.

2. Click the Chat icon on the Taskbar.

3. If the ... (What's new and more) button at the top right of the Chat window is showing a red (or some other colour) dot, then this is the issue.  Click the ... button and select What's new from the popup menu.  The badge number on the Teams icon should now have disappeared.

So, it seems that Teams displays a badge number on the Teams icon in the Taskbar when there is a notification of something new in the What's new section.  However, I could not find any way to see this notification or display the What's new menu from within the Teams app itself.  It seems to only be accessible via the Chat app.  Go figure!

I had this problem on two of my Windows 11 computers and this solution worked on both of them.