Teams Client teams.exe multiple copies running

[Betty Stolwyk]

Why do I have 7 teams.exe running? (as seen in Task Manager - - Microsoft Community

I was looking for something in Task Manager processes and noticed that I had 7 Teams.exe running.  I actually had not even opened the client UI at that point although I do have the background task running in the System Tray.

Why were there so many instances of teams.exe?  Should I remove them?

We have Offrice 365 Enterprise E3 licences.  

I am running on a Windows 7 client machine.

[#2]

Interesting, in my case I'm seeing 6 Team processes running on my Windows 10 machine

[#3]

I've got 4 running, in addition to the main app.

Luckily I have 32GB ram, but now sure what they all are... see pic.

[#4]

A little weird, right?  I played around a little more and it looks like as soon as Teams starts running in the background (in system tray) I get 5 teams.exe processes immediately.  It stays 5 instances regardless of whether the client UI is open or not.

I noticed when a sixth teams.exe showed up.  I had added a SharePoint tab to one of the channels.  When I clicked on that tab, it made me sign in again to our O365 SP site, and another teams.exe popped up in processes.

[#5]

Hi to all,

I have the same, when starting have 1 process on Apps and 4 processes on background.

[#6 · Accepted solution]

I received an answer to this on a different forum (answers.microsoft.com) from Amanda Zhang, MSFT. 

"Based on my experience, when running Microsoft Teams client on our computer, there are some background processes along with it. It is normal behavior, so you don’t need to worry about this. If you encounter any issue when using Microsoft Teams, feel free to post a new thread in our forum."

So it looks like that is just what it is.  I will consider this answered and won't open a support ticket.

[#7]

I don't know if it's related to having multiple copies running, but many users complain about Teams consuming too much RAM. Actually, it does also in my environments where unfortunately I don't have 32GB RAM (but only 2GB).

You can give feedback and follow updates on the issue here:

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/17219609-teams-uses-600mb-and-...

[#8]

In my experience, 4 processes is standard for the latest Teams client and I'll am guessing more processes are spun-up as certain features are used.

Note: by default Teams runs in the background when the app is closed. You can change that in your profile settings "On close, keep the application running".

[#9]

@Betty Stolwyk I have literally hundreds of Teams processes running, and I can't delete any of them (I get a Permission Denied message even running as Administrator).  Teams is a massive resource hog.

[#10]

@hellcats      oh my goodness.  That seems really strange and even more excessive that I would have ever expected.  And odd that you can not end the task through Task Manager.  

So, a few questions ....

1) do you have access to the web version of Teams or only the client application?  The web version should have a smaller footprint I think.  If you are able to open the web version of Teams in your browser, it will appear in your Task Manager as a browser task.  This is what it looks like when I open it in Edge:

2) Do you have the latest version of the Teams client application? (Mine is 1.3.00.362)  There are a couple of ways to verify

• Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features then scroll down to find Microsoft Teams.  The version will be displayed in the Version column
•  

• In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Users\{your name}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\current.  Scroll down to find Teams.exe.  Right-click the file name > Properties > Details tab.  Search for Product Version.

3)  If you sign out of the client application, do all the Task Manager Teams.exe entries disappear?

4) In Task Manager, does the Processes tab have the same number of Teams.exe entries as the Details tab that you showed in your screenshot?

5) Do others in your office experience the same thing you do as far as the extreme number of Teams.exe entries in Task Manager?

Here's hoping you can get this into a more manageable experience!

Betty

[#11]

I have the setting for 'Keep Teams running in background after it closes turned off, and just found 6 instances running.

I guess have to uninstall in between meetings.,

[#12]

@Data_Juggler 

@Data_Juggler 
Indeed, Teams is a huge resource hog.
If you want to kill all instances of Teams.exe quickly, you can do so via the command line.  Start the command window by holding WINDOWS and tap R and then in the small windows type in CMD and hit ENTER.  In the new cmd text console, type in:
taskkill /im teams.exe /F
That will kill ALL running Teams almost instantly.

If RAM and CPU are of concern, I found you can minimize that damage by deleting users' Teams temporary folders every month or so.  First ensure everyone's Teams.exe are killed off (or ensure everyone's logged off except for you).  Then, for each {username} delete the following folders:
"%systemdrive%\users\{username}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\previous"
"%systemdrive%\users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Teams"
"%systemdrive%\users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams\Application Cache\Cache"
"%systemdrive%\users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams\Cache"
"%systemdrive%\users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams\logs.txt"
"%systemdrive%\users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams\old_logs*"
^ Note above, old_logs* to delete all filenames starting with "old_logs"
"%systemdrive%\users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams\Service{Worker\CacheStorage"
"%systemdrive%\users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams\Service{Worker\ScriptCache"
After this, when our users next launch Teams, they've found that it starts faster and consume less CPU and RAM ... well, at least for a few days 🙂

For me, my irritation is with Windows Remote Desktop Server (RDS (RDP)) where I may have 10 users on simultaneously, several of whom insist on running Teams in that environment rather than on their PCs -- the CEO wants me to support users in doing what's most convenient/comfortable for them, otherwise I'd just remove Teams on RDS ;-\.  Several users running Teams on RDS slows down the server noticeably.  In this case, I set up a scheduled task that runs every 30 minutes to make Teams run as "idle" priority instead of "normal" priority.  The end users don't even notice that Teams is running slower at all!  Superb!  Here is the command line for that:
"C:\Windows\System32\wbem\WMIC.exe" process where name="Teams.exe" call setpriority "idle"
For RDS, I also strongly suggest you set each user so that the Teams' settings are as such:  in the left pane's tab GENERAL > [blank]Auto-start Application, [blank]On close, keep the application running, ..scroll to the bottom [ON]Turn off animations.  Then left tab's NOTIFICATIONS > ..under Email heading turn [OFF]Missed activity emails.  For RDS you may additionally wish to turn [OFF]Play sound for incoming calls and notifications.

Off-topic, but I thought I'd share this too about Teams and heat.  Some users often complained about excessive laptop heat and the distracting noisy cooling fan while on Teams calls.  I finally figured out it usually occurs on laptops that have dedicated graphic chips, like dedicated Nvidea GeForce.  The solution is to go to Teams' SETTINGS > left tab GENERAL > [ON]Disable GPU hardware acceleration

John

[#13]

@Betty Stolwyk 

Seems it's normal since several service is running from the back