Introducing Chat from Microsoft Teams on Windows 11, for your personal accounts
Published Oct 04 2021 01:00 PM 156K Views

Starting on October 5th, all Windows 11 users can start using Chat from Microsoft Teams on Windows. It is a signature, lightweight experience brought right to the Taskbar to let Teams personal account users quickly start a video call or chat with friends and family. Chat from Microsoft Teams is installed and pinned to the Taskbar at Windows 11 startup. Windows 11 also includes the full Teams app experience for personal accounts, which powers Chat.


The new Teams experience on Windows 11 and Chat are intended for personal Microsoft accounts and will be available only to individuals using such accounts.

Chat from Microsoft Teams on Windows 11Chat from Microsoft Teams on Windows 11

 

Can I use Chat with my Teams work or school account?

No – Chat on Windows 11 is available only for Teams personal users. If you are an IT administrator for work or school account (AAD) users, please instruct your users to use the version of Teams that is labeled work or school and uses the icon with blue tile with a white letter “T” inside. If you try to log into Chat with your work or school account, you will be redirected to download Teams for work or school.


So, there will be different versions of Teams on my Windows 11 device?

Yes. Chat on Windows 11 is powered by the version of the Teams app that uses your personal Microsoft account.


Teams work or school account users will use the version of the Teams app that is labeled (work or school) and uses the icon with a blue tile with a white letter “T”.

Microsoft Teams icons and label in Windows search.Microsoft Teams icons and label in Windows search.

Microsoft Teams icons and label in the Windows Taskbar.Microsoft Teams icons and label in the Windows Taskbar.

 

Please note that the label will become available over the next three weeks.


If you accidentally try to log into the wrong version of the app, Teams will inform you.


As a Teams user, what should I expect after upgrading to Windows 11?

If you had Teams installed before upgrading your device to Windows 11, you can continue to use Teams for work or school as you had prior to the upgrade. Your settings for your work or school app (AAD) will stay in place. If you were previously using one Teams app for both personal and work or school accounts, on Windows 11 you will now have a dedicated app for each experience.


If you just bought a new device with Windows 11, download the Teams for work or school app (AAD) here.


For additional guidance about using Teams for work or school on Windows 11, please read this support article.


We would like to hear your feedback on the Chat from Microsoft Teams experience; please provide your feedback on Uservoice.

97 Comments
Iron Contributor

I'm sorry but this is just terrible branding. It's a huge mistake not having 1 client that plays nice with all accounts, and who is ever going to use a product called 'Teams' to call their friends and family?! 

 

Fix this, by giving us a new work Teams app based on the new architecture, fully integrated into Windows 11. That's what people were excited about when we heard about this.. but non-work Teams isnt going to find any traction.

 

Make it so that Skype accounts can also be loaded into the 1 Teams client. And keep Skype around as a separate app for people who don't need all the additional features. Now was that really so hard?

Silver Contributor

Users will never remember which color icon is for what, good luck with that :) This integration feels rough and rushed. Like some other places of Windows 11. And so many Insider blogs about fixing myriads of things in Dev channel. I guess in a year or so it will be fixed more or less.

Iron Contributor

With the publication of this article you admit yourself that this is a bad idea.

If you need to explain it, it's no good. It's that simple.

Brass Contributor

Agree this is a mistake. There should be one app that you sign in and use with your accounts. 

Iron Contributor

Waiting for the article to admins on which Intune policy can remove the built-in Teams app. Moving no users to 11 until that is possible.

Steel Contributor

Terrible idea and even worse execution, I have no clue how to explain it to my clients, it's a nightmare. We will lose money and you will lose more customers. Someone is really incompetent there or there was not enough communication and too much collaboration, maybe :p

Copper Contributor

Total mess. Can Microsoft leave Teams alone. If anything create a Chat App for Corporate versions of MS Teams.

Brass Contributor

The first app I always uninstall. Really should've incorporated work/school accounts, since the majority use Teams for work/school.

Brass Contributor

This is annoying.  There is no way I should have to have 2 apps with the same name on my computer.  What if I have a friend/colleague on my work/school account and personal account?  I will have to check each time to see which account they message me on. 

Copper Contributor

@Thijs Bergervoet Absolutely agree with this. While they should be doing that, they should also be rolling out features for a whole tenant at once instead of the current blind firing method they have been using. Hell, even with myself enrolled in the Public Preview version, I find myself getting features after users that are not in it sometimes. 

Iron Contributor

Like everyone else, I am really disappointed by this mess, now we have skype, skype for business, teams personal, teams for work and none of them communicate or integrate with each other well.  Why is Microsoft so fragmented that none of their teams talk to each other and nothing integrates between their products ?

 

Why does anyone need teams personal when you have skype and it is nothing like teams for work either ? 

 

I echo the comment of Thijs Bergervoet above   "Make it so that Skype accounts can also be loaded into the 1 Teams client. And keep Skype around as a separate app for people who don't need all the additional features. Now was that really so hard?"

Steel Contributor

Just to parrot everyone else, I can't agree enough that this is a truly awful design.  We admins can know about this and write all the help desk articles in the world, but something as simple as logging into Teams should be self-evident and not require this reinventing of the wheel in terms of user communication and training.

 

Not to mention that in the release copy of Windows 11, the built-in Teams app even still has the non-white icon in the splash screen. Just a tiny nitpick on top of my current disappointment.

 

https://imgur.com/a/PQzLDa0

Brass Contributor

This is really dumb and going to cause a lot of confusion

Copper Contributor

I really hope they don't keep this design... Even if we publish this info in my org I guarantee my staff will be flooded with confused users...

Copper Contributor

After seeing the Teams integration in Windows 11 on the ads leading up to the release, I was so excited...

Now I'm just disappointed. I don't know a single person outside of work who would be like "Let's hop on Teams!", so this feature is practically worthless to me. I have to at least thank you for giving me the option to remove it from the taskbar!

Copper Contributor

I really like the Idea of Teams being integrated for personal and Work/School accounts.  But as other have commented, "Teams" as a brand/name doesn't make sense for personal or family group chats. I also dislike that the Personal and Work accounts cannot directly communicate. For example, It seems kind of convoluted that I have to use external emails or  external chats to join a meeting for an interview when we both have MS Teams clients. I found a work around from my personal account by starting meeting (by myself) and then sending an invite link to the other person with a "Work" account. If that works, why not let me start a call directly. I hope this all gets sorted out nicely in the future ( crossing my fingers)

Copper Contributor

And this was considered a good idea? How about improving compatibility of updates first before wasting resources on things like this.

Brass Contributor

Pretty awful branding and move...  Teams for Corp/school/work is fine.  Teams brand coming to the personal area, while you still have skype is STUPID.   Who ever came up with this plan should be sent to Siberia or the MS equivalent of that.   Just update Skype for Windows.   How hard is that?!

Copper Contributor

 

 

Just wanted to comment, because I just installed windows 11 and was weirded out by the two teams apps

 

So, on my laptop I have

 

Onedrive – Personal

Onedrive- For business

(different functionalities the personal one is better!)

 

Skype – Personal

Skype – For business

Teams – Personal

Teams – For business

Linkedin Messages

 

Really? If MS is trying to compete with Google do it by doing things BETTER! Not making the same dumb mistakes; google still is doing worse: Google Talk, Voice, Wave, Buzz, +, Hangouts, Spaces, Allo, Duo, Meet and Chat

 

Why not integrate or make them talk with each other? Change accounts with a click?

 

Its absurd to pour so much money into something and make the same mistakes all over

Copper Contributor

Microsoft TEAMS needs to be consistent!

 

This is BAD by Design. I am now going to have to work group policy to remove this to give my users the correct experience. 

 

You are forcing paying customers to look elsewhere.  Fire whoever you need to in order to make this uniform.

 

 

Brass Contributor

I am just baffled it made it this far though the betas and no one was like "Hold up, this is stupid".  

Copper Contributor

My god, what are you doing Microsoft? "If you are an IT administrator for work or school account (AAD) users, please instruct your users to use the version of Teams"

 

Are you people out of your minds? I literally laughed out loud when I read that. This is the most bone-headed thing i've ever seen. Users can barely remember their passwords, or differentiate between Skype and Skype for business. Staff members within my 1000+ seat enterprise still end up creating personal "work" accounts and struggling to sign into Office 365 when they're prompted with the message "is this is a work or school account?".

 

This is awful branding, completely tone deaf, and just terrible UX in general. Do better and get rid of this stupidity. No home user is going to launch MICROSOFT TEAMS to call their grandmother. What a joke.

Steel Contributor

One more comment.

 

If you try to log into Chat with your work or school account, you will be redirected to download Teams for work or school.

Respectfully, that's not really true if you channel the logic of an end user for a moment. Check the screenshot below. They get an error in red text effectively telling them "you can't sign in" and it stops. Few will think to click "x" out of that window, find that grey, barely visible button labeled "Get Microsoft Teams (work or school)", and click that. They will call their IT and say that "Teams isn't working."

 

https://imgur.com/a/PQzLDa0

Copper Contributor

bring back drag and drop on our taskbar!

Copper Contributor

I’m sorry, how is this an improvement? Windows 10 featured one app for Personal, Work or School. Now you split it into two apps, one poorly labeled (work or school) and need to write guidance on which Teams app to Chat with your Teams with and have no guidance how IT admins can lock down and guide users to the correct one because what’s better than dozens of help desk calls “which teams do I use again” “teams says I can’t login” 

 

 

Copper Contributor

JFC. How much time did your product development group collectively spend sitting at the back of the Short Bus?  The fact that you needed to write this article to inform users which Teams application they need to use is certainly a sign of poor design/branding choices.  

Bronze Contributor

Just another manifestation of rushing Win11 out the door for the sake of new MS PCs and OEM PCs to go on sale for the holidays. All things considered this is one of the least egregious, as feather-brained as it is. Consider the taskbar itself and how crippled it is compared to Win10's. And there are many other examples.

 

In about a year, the real Win11 will stand up.

Copper Contributor

This leads to even more confusion for the people that have both personal and corporate accounts tied to the same e-mail.

They can login to both using the same account name and probably password.

Copper Contributor

Stupid design decisions. Baffling.

Copper Contributor

Doesn't work for me. Crashes immediately after launch :( 

Copper Contributor

Technically, it's the same as it was with Skype - it's just that the colours are switched up this time. Skype for Business had blue-on-white, Skype personal had white-on-blue. Now it's the other way around, and since it's not the entire icon but rather just the T overlay on it... it's that much harder to see. Not that any of this makes the whole mess excusable. I'm just baffled by the myriad of bad decisions around W11, from features through design to the whole rushing it out the door bit. And still they come....

 

And I mean - look at what we have here. Despite already having a full-blown Microsoft account, I had to basically create one here and then link it to that just to be able to comment, and it doesn't even use my MS account's profile picture. Despite having all this segmenting and fragmentation amidst all their stuff - you cannot delete your old Skype username from your account, it's just not possible. In fact, you cannot delete your Skype account at all without closing your entire MS account as a whole. As mind-boggling as this entire Teams thing is, it's more expected than surprising.

Steel Contributor

Ah, it's Skype and Skype for Business all over again. For some reason.

Copper Contributor

Most people use their phones to call their family. But teams only supports logging into one account. Which account do you think I'll use for team, work or personal? 

 

The easy solution is the fact that teams will never be a personal app.

Copper Contributor

Why would you think splitting it into two apps would be a good idea? Onedrive automatically chooses which version to use based on the login credentials. Why is the Personal version of Teams even integrated in Windows 11 Professional that is directed at businesses?

Whoever gave the go-ahead for this needs to be unemployed.

Copper Contributor

LeonsDev_1-1633606294758.png

 

as you can see it clearly says teams for school or work. Not confusing at all

Copper Contributor

If you are an IT administrator for work or school account (AAD) users, please instruct your users to use the version of Teams that is labeled work or school and uses the icon with blue tile with a white letter “T” inside.

ARE YOU GUYS FOR REAL? HAVE YOU EVER WORKED IN THE REAL WORLD?

 

I'm sorry, how do I disable this absolute trash? 

How would I actually go about disabling this heap of garbage from my enterprise network? Is there a GPO setting which will disable this? Or are you going to take away GPO from Pro and Enterprise versions all together too?

 

 

Copper Contributor

Just saying, sorry but no! It doesn't make any sense...

 

Copper Contributor

This is a bad idea. I'm sick and tired of dealing with all these separate apps already and all the extra bloatware the windows shoves down your throat, only for us to remove in the enterprise env. It's bad enough getting users to adopt and adapt to using ONE app. I can just foresee the issues now with users thinking they've signed into their organizational account on their work PC only to be using the "home" version in W11. There can't be that many people opting to use Teams for personal use. I find that quite laughable with all the personal messaging apps people are using on their mobile devices. Definitely wont be installing W11 anytime soon.  

Copper Contributor
What a great IDEA (irony mode ON)
Copper Contributor

A seasoned IT professional here and I could not figure out what was going on with the Windows 11 Chat... sadly this article had to explain it.   

 

I have hundreds of contacts in my list under "synced contacts" in the Windows 11 Chat application. They are listed by phone number,  email addresses, and name. The same contacts are listed multiple times in various display combinations (i.e. First Last and a phone number, or First Last and an email, or just a First and Last, etc) . Even some toll-free numbers are appearing as contacts (I can't tell if they were past incoming calls, or outgoing calls)... at the least it could be listed in alapha/numeric order. Instead it's a random list of some recognizable contacts. There's no option to search a contact. 

 

Where do these contacts sync from? They don't exist in my MS account/outlook or any other connected account or phones. 

Copper Contributor

Teams is just a bad name. It's given me semantic satiation of the word team. 

Copper Contributor

I can't believe this. This is real?

Copper Contributor

This is just insane.. Noone who worked even a single day at IT in a corporate environment would think of adding a second app that looks almost identical.

This is way too confusing for end users and even IT staff that doesn't read blogs every day. You can't expect a regular user to get this straight.

 


If you are an IT administrator for work or school account (AAD) users, please instruct your users to use the version of Teams that is labeled work or school and uses the icon with blue tile with a white letter “T” inside. If you try to log into Chat with your work or school account, you will be redirected to download Teams for work or school.

And you have the audacity to brush this issue, that you clearly know of, off to the sysadmins.. Unbelievable. Why does it even have to be two separate apps?

Copper Contributor

I'm with the rest of the group here, I moved to business 0365 so that I could centralize accounts for my family and take advantage of the tools I use in the business world.  But I seem to keep running into hiccups where features I would like to use require me to use a personal account.  Want to use the new chat ? ....sorry only for personal, Want to link your android phone to your PC ? ....sorry only for personal.  Want to remove gaming or features that are more for playing than for business use ?...Sorry we make force you to keep that.  This is disheartening, MAC OS 10 and apple products have had common things like chat, iCloud, cross device integration for years, Do better Microsoft  

Copper Contributor

@LeonsDev i really confused more when you screenshot and your caption is not tally. You stated "as you can see it clearly says teams for school or work. Not confusing at all" but I had been look at the picture for more than one minute, I totally can't find what you stated.

 

Sarcasm: Btw, I think Microsoft is trying to encourage WORK-LIFE balance that's why they separate Microsoft Teams to Personal and Work, to remind us.

Copper Contributor

.....don't present a bug like a feature. Excuse yourself and let us know when you expect to have it solved. 

Copper Contributor

So i have more and more places to look for my chat messages...

 

Teams Work - School

Teams Work - School Guest accounts in multiple tenants.. (AARRGHH!)

Teams Private

.... What's next.

 

Why not ONE chat application... 

Copper Contributor

I'm just going to pile on here and say having a separate client for personal Teams usage is not a great idea for a variety of reasons. The biggest being is it's just going to confuse the h*ll out of my users. I can see all the tickets now..."I'm trying log into Teams but it won't let me. Has my password been hacked? OMG, I've been hacked! Help!" Please tell me there's a way we can hide, opt out or just get rid of this Chat for MS Teams app before/if we decide to migrate everyone to Win11.

Copper Contributor

First thing that comes to mind is all the people coming into retail asking why the Wii U was so much when it was just a controller. This is really stupid and will only cause problems.

Silver Contributor

I think the new Microsoft Teams in Windows 11 should be able to integrate with Work/School accounts and not having it is dumb. Microsoft are you trying to copy Apple and not care about enterprise users with Windows 11????? @Microsoft_Teams_team 

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