Microsoft Teams Rooms May update
Published May 21 2020 08:00 AM 106K Views

The impact of COVID-19 has dramatically changed how we work today, with a monumental number of organizations working from home. While physical meeting rooms may not be a focal point for many right now, there are still organizations and industries whose essential workers continue to rely on these spaces during this time. We also recognize the vital role Microsoft Teams Rooms will play when organizations return to work. To this end, we want to share the latest update for Microsoft Teams Rooms, app version 4.4.41.0, now available on the Windows store and coming to every Microsoft Teams Room over the next few weeks.

 

This release contains the following features:

 

Modern authentication support

Microsoft Teams Room administrators can now configure Microsoft Teams Rooms to use modern authentication to connect to Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Skype for Business services. Although Microsoft Teams Rooms already communicate over encrypted channels (such as TLS 1.2), using modern authentication reduces the need to send passwords over the network, leveraging tokens provided by Azure Active directory. To help reduce the potential attack surface, Microsoft Exchange Online will disable basic authentication in the future, as announced in the blog “Improving Security – Together”. Modern authentication support for Microsoft Teams Rooms will help ensure business continuity for your devices connecting to Exchange Online.

 

In light of COVID-19, and to reduce potential impact for existing on-premises customers who may need time to plan and implement hybrid modern authentication, turning on modern authentication will be manual. To learn more about how to set up and use modern authentication, follow the guidance published in Authentication in Microsoft Teams Rooms.

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Application splash screen

The new application splash screen improves the startup experience when a Microsoft Teams Room device wakes up from an idle state or the device reboots. This provides end users with a more visually appealing experience while the device loads.

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Project content to one or both front of room displays

For configurations with dual front of room displays, we now provide the flexibility to project content to only one display when using an HDMI cable to present outside the context of a meeting. Meeting Room administrators can apply this setting via an XML configuration file. Learn more about using the XML configuration file in the documentation titled “Manage a Microsoft Teams Rooms console settings remotely with an XML configuration file”.

 

Support for dynamic emergency calling for Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams Rooms now supports dynamic emergency calling and provides an updated calling experience tailored to emergency policies set by Microsoft Teams administrators. During an emergency call, both the console and front of room displays will show the phone number and location associated with the Microsoft Teams Room. Using emergency policies configured by Microsoft Teams administrators, the emergency call can be routed to specific emergency numbers. Learn more about emergency calling in Manage emergency calling.

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Open Source Software (OSS) notices in device settings

Room administrators can now easily access Microsoft Teams third-party software notices on the Microsoft Teams Room console. Administrators can see these notices in Settings, under the About tab. Notices can also be viewed through the Microsoft Teams desktop application.

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210 Comments
Brass Contributor

Some great features here, The modern auth and startup logo continue to ensure this is enterprise grade and fit for business users.

Brass Contributor

Has 3 x 3 video reached Microsoft Teams Rooms? If not, where in the roadmap is it?

Copper Contributor

Teams needs to provide a way to hide the left side bar from the projected screen and/or from a shared screen. The reason is that we want to focus on only the team relevant for the meeting/sharing topic and not get distracted by or reveal confidential information from seeing names of other teams one belongs too. Teams could for instance be set up per customer and show customer names.

Copper Contributor

Is there a plan for MTR to actively create whiteboards?
Currently requires teams clients to join the MTR meeting sharing whiteboard before the touch screen can be used for whiteboard interaction in the conference room

@Microsoft_Teams_team 

Copper Contributor

Hi Ilya any update on when MTR will get Zoom and CiscoWebEX one touch Join.

Copper Contributor

Microsoft: These are new updates for Teams...

Me: 7x7 user on screen please XD

Hi, how exactly with the Modern Auth should be enabling workflow? I read the article, environment have Modern Auth enabled in EXO/S4B (so for Teams). MTRS enabled Modern Auth in settings on device (so update should be there). Restarted. AAD shows that MTRS still logs with Basic Auth, and calendar stops working on device, meetings works. So, should be there some delay expected, or tokens revoked, or something else? Thanks.

Copper Contributor

Will this new version be supporting the fill screen / fit to screen options ?

If we join a multi user video call, the MTR software crops some images which isn't perfect.

 

Thanks

Matt

Steel Contributor

Hello Guys

 

Very good work

But seriously XML files...Get rid of thoses...

Copper Contributor

Hi, so far we are happy with MTR however there has not been much chance to properly utilise the rooms due to lockdown. Is there going to be an option to change the settings mid-call? It is very frustrating having to end calls to configure speaker and mic setups

Copper Contributor

MS teams has been great for us during lockdown. Screensharing, chat, multiple video calls and the ability to hear our colleagues children use the toilet on the other side of the house....

 

I have no idea why, but MS teams seems to make the microphones of all users uber-sensitive and it picks up noise from very far away. We haven't found this with any other application, and we've been using a lot of them to try and find the best quality.

 

Please sort it out!

Don't forget Raise Hand/Lower Hand is now on the MTR centre console too as part of this release.

 

@Rory_Martin The Webex join has started evaluation and Zoom will follow shortly. I've seen a public message that it should be available sometime Q3 as long as it passes all the testing required.

 

@Matt_NComm On the MTR console, you can Pin a participant, meaning they will go full screen.  There is no fit to screen option.

 

@Petr Vlk Modern Auth should just work after a reboot, I've not see any issues with it. I heard of someone disabling Basic Auth on their environment the MTR is fine signing in.  Do you have any other policies in place that is telling the MTR to use basic auth?

 

@Ivar Engen

There is no 3x3 on the MTR, it was mentioned a while back, so I expect it some time this year now it's hit the desktop app.

@JackWang No whiteboard initiation as yet from the centre of room.  It was announced that it would arrive at some point.

@Graham Walsh: Thanks, will retry with two reboots for sure. It is default config except on this. Just the room account connected. Basic authentication itself still allowed. Only rule for all accounts is block high risk sign-in. People accounts enforce MFA or MDM within CA, but this account is excluded from these. Interesting that in Sign-In logs there are only basic authentication prompts from account. So I suspect some token validity timeframe maybe.

Copper Contributor

So we experienced this known issue this today https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/troubleshoot/teams-administration/teams-rooms-app-wo.... Microsoft when are you going to start dealing with these problems? Customers expect these devices to be extremely reliable and this is not the first, nor will it be the last time you push out a buggy update that frustrates customers. Please start listing to the community, it’s time to rethink your approach on these devices. Limit your hardware partners and focus on stability of the platform. This is the third iteration of Microsoft's attempt at entering the meeting room solutions space, its time to do it properly or expect defeat and bow out to Cisco or Zoom.

Sorry but some its time hear the hard truths.

 

Copper Contributor

Nice new features and functionality. :smile: Is it possible to change the new application splash screen to provide a specific startup experience to support communication to the meeting room attendees on the measures in the meeting room that are COVID-19 related? 

Microsoft

Lots of questions above, I'll do my best to answer some / most of these.

@Ronald Scherpenisse no the app startup screen is not customizable.  However this is really only expected to be shown during restart thus hopefully not to users.  We would suggest customizing the front of room display background with any key user info.

 

@Madbanzai We are working hard to deal with all problems / issues on MTR.  We have limited our MTR HW partners (Zoom for example have more partners), and we are listening to the community (I try my best to be as responsive as possible, and I lead the Devices area for Teams).  Please feel free to PM me with any more feedback. 

@beirtipol for Certified devices, Teams offloads audio processing to the HW devices.  We should not be doing anything which would make HW mics more sensitive than any other meeting service.

@EddScriven we are working on enabling camera selection, for multi camera systems, on MTR during Teams meetings.  We are not looking to enable audio changes during calls / meetings as changing audio on a room systems should generally be very rare.  In Teams desktop / PC, you can change / select devices during meetings.

 

@Christophe Humbert we will leave XML config files support in MTR for now, however MTR can also be fully configured now from the Teams Admin Center, without need for XML.

 

@Matt_NComm auto fit to screen for room systems is being worked on in Q3 of this CY.

 

@wheeqo and @Ivar Engen  3x3 video will come to MTR a bit later, its being worked on now (its being tested in our early rings, will hopefully ship in Q3 of this CY).  To the 7x7 question, adding more video to Teams meetings is something we said we would also be working on and deliver later this year.

 

@blouwagie I'm unclear on your question. Are you sharing a PC screen which has the Teams window on it?  Have you tried just sharing a window instead of the full screen?  Meeting participants should then only see the contents of that one window.

 

@Ryan_Wang yes we are actively working on enabling MIcrosoft Whiteboard sharing to be started on MTR.  We expect that to ship a bit later this CY.

 

@Rory_Martin due to the COVID situation, both Cisco and especially Zoom (due to their well publicized security "time out") have had to delay their support for Direct Guest Join.  As such, we expect to go into TAP with MTR joining WebEx meetings shortly, then into TAP for Zoom meetings in July, and hopefully GA by end of Q3 of this CY. 

Brass Contributor

Did I miss something? Is configuring MTRs really available in the Teams Admin Center? 

Oh no, I just checked. It is not (in our tenant) as of now. So I will continue to wait for that feature to roll out... 

Steel Contributor

@Ilya BukshteynThanks a lot for those complete answer

Sometimes it is hard to know where we are especially when you are managing tenant of 10+ companies and the roll-out is different from one tenant to the other

Copper Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn Thanks for all the work you are putting into making Microsoft Team Rooms devices work so well. 

 

However, we are also experience this issue in my organization https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/troubleshoot/teams-administration/teams-rooms-app-wo...

 

The problem is that we have 200 rooms in production and have about 35 affected by this, following these steps manually on each effected system is a complete time-kill for us when we could be working on other issues.

 

Does anybody have any tips on quickly resolving this problem?

Microsoft

@teamstothemoon really sorry to hear you're hitting this issue. We are for sure working hard to identify the root cause of this, jointly with the Windows team.  Meanwhile, we've seen that multiple reboots tend to clear the issue on most systems.  Is that not the case for you?  @Sohail Tariq can you also please help?

 

Brass Contributor

@teamstothemoon having same issue on SRS here as well. Steps in the article did not resolve the problem, still black screen. Next step re-image the system.

Copper Contributor

I've seen a couple of devices with black screen after the Teams Splash screen. 

 

One of them was a ThinkSmart Hub 500, and even using the USB recovery procedure didn't fix it - actually it made things worse (cannot login as admin any more). I don't know about this case as much as I didn't factory reset it myself.

 

Another ThinkSmart Hub has the same issue, haven't factory resetted that yet (would have to be onsite for that), but have tried all the suggestions found here:

 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/troubleshoot/teams-administration/teams-rooms-app-wo...

 

also done multiple reboots and the MTR has had a long time to wait between the reboots.

 

Oh, and doing the step 3 doesn't complete. The MTR is affected (app installed under NT Authority\System), but after creating C:\Rigel\AdminHookScripts\Logon.ps1 and rebooting (multiple times), the file still exists in that location although to my understanding it should be deleted after it is run once. So I doubt the app itself is deleted either.

Microsoft

@Wilfried van Oosterhout @Kalle Hölsömäki and anyone else seeing these issues, please PM @Sohail Tariq and @Greg Baribault on my team so we can get logs from you.  Thank you, and sorry again for you experiencing these issues!

Copper Contributor

When will the click to zoom Zoom meetings announced in November be released?  

Copper Contributor

Good updates!

We are missing the possibility/option to use "System sound" when presenting with HDMI to the Teams Room-unit. Is that option in the roadmap? Should be useful! :)

Microsoft

@JonQuint , due to the COVID situation, both Cisco and especially Zoom (due to their well publicized security "time out") have had to delay their support for Direct Guest Join.  As such, we are in TAP with MTR joining WebEx meetings since last week, and will be in TAP for Zoom meetings in July, and hopefully GA by end of Q3 of this CY.

 

@OTuser450 , Audio over HDMI works out of meetings today, we are actively working on enabling HDMI audio in Teams meetings. We expect to GA in H2 CY2020. 

 

Iron Contributor

@Sohail Tariq How to join Direct Guest join TAP? Any plans to support BlueJeans as well?

Copper Contributor

Is there a plan to develop the option of breakout rooms in MS Teams in a similar way to Zoom? Be a great additional options for collaborative meetings.

 

Copper Contributor

Please find a proper place where the Meeting Options should be placed. It covers a portion of the shared screen. Thanks!

Copper Contributor

Will there become any possibility to use the Microsoft Wireless Display adapter as input for Screensharing ? I have tested it with a Logitech TAP but it doesn't seem to be supported (yet)

Microsoft

@LaSE_Pharmacy yes breakout rooms are in our backlog

 

@Remar10 can you please elaborate?  Are you talking about on MTR?

 

@Pavel Aivazov we do plan to add support for more services to DGJ in the future, but nothing announced yet. 

 

@GerryVS we do not support the Microsoft Wireless Display adapter, as that was not really an enterprise device, but more of a personal / user device.  We are working on building on our proximity join feature to support "casting" outside of meetings but still using the Teams cloud service

Brass Contributor

I'm seeing a curious issue with  4.4.41.0 on one of our MTR systems.  This is a HP slice.  When selecting new meeting, the touchscreen goes black and the screen to type in the desired contact shows up on the front of room display.  Of course, since that isn't a touchscreen, the system is now unusable.  Not really sure how to troubleshoot that.  The system works fine for scheduled meetings but as you can see in the image, the touchscreen goes blank as soon as the new meeting button is pressed.

 

MTR_issue_41.png

Microsoft

@Glenn Chubak , We have never seen this happen, specially associated with an action like going to new meeting. Here are couple of things to try:
1. Reboot the device to see if it fixes the issue
2. Attach a keyboard and log in to Admin user on the device and then make sure the console is set as primary and left most screen

In any case, Please upload logs to a share and send me a link via private message. Also, send me details on the front of room display manufacturer/ model. so I can have an engineer take a look at what triggered this.

Brass Contributor

@sohahmThank you very much for your quick and helpful reply.  A reboot did not correct the issue.  However, when viewing the display setup, I noted there was a third display showing up.  It seems that a video splitter was plugged into the second display port on the slice.  Disabling this device has resolved the issue.

 

I'm satisfied to leave it at that.  Thanks again.

Brass Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn @Sohail Tariq  Thank you for all the great answers about what is coming on the MTR units this year.

 

A couple of more asks though:

 

1) will the MTR units gain the ability to use closed captioning this year?

2) Will we be able to switch layouts between gallery, content or both like in Skype?

3) Will there ever be an option even for minor branding on the Teams Room console itself?

 

Thank you.

Microsoft

@ToddMethven 

1) Yes

2) Yes

3) Yes but not sure if this CY, likely next

Copper Contributor

@Glenn ChubakI believe you meant to mention @Sohail Tariq.

Brass Contributor

Hi, experts, is there any way to manually control the MTR update(not the windows OS update), I mean batch by batch, but hundreds of rooms systems online, I prefer the update under control rather than leaving them waiting for the Microsoft Store automatical update. 

Hi @Ricky_Deng You can use remote PowerShell to do this. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/rooms/rooms-operations#software-updates  I've written a blog post on it here too https://www.graham-walsh.com/manual-update-of-the-microsoft-teams-room-system-app/

 

Guess you could script that based on your MTR naming convention.

Brass Contributor

thanks! @Graham Walsh , your post did help, I was wondering any way to stop the MTR auto update, and control it batch by batch, do you have any idea?

The only thing I can think of is to disable store updates, but not sure if the overnight script will override this. I would have to wipe a system and test it out unless someone else knows/tested already.

Brass Contributor

Don't understand why MS moved the installation of the MTR app to the context of the Skype user. If you want to update the app you first need to install deployment kit, install it under the context of the admin user and then you can update it. This was working so much better in the past.

Brass Contributor

@Sohail Tariq wondering if you could comment i have an enterprise customer mention that the MTR system was capturing quite a bit of skype logs to the local drive.  This in itself is not a problem but their question was do these ever need to be purged or are they set to delete after a certain amount of time? 

 

Please advise.  Thank you!

Iron Contributor

When will 4.4.41.0 issue where the GUI won't load be fixed? I don't want to babysit all these rooms to make sure they are working prior to users going in to use them.  I've gone through all 5 exhaustive steps on the troubleshooting doc with 0 resolution and support just says "its a known issue." 

Copper Contributor

@DBR14 I've got today also reports that users can't join a meeting from a MTR device, the join button doesn't seem to work anymore, even not after a restart of the device. Is there any bypass/fix ? 

Microsoft

@Ricky_Deng , Application updates are delivered using Windows store and it is not currently possible to create rings and do gradual rollout within your organization. We are working on enabling controlled rollout of the application through Teams Admin Center in conjunction with Intune so that large organizations can have better control over rollouts. While you can disable store updates today and use Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly known as Systems Center Configuration Manager) to either reimage or install application found within msi that is published with every release, you need to have detailed knowledge of how these systems work and it may add considerable overhead for you. My recommendation is to please join MTR TAP program so you have a few devices enrolled to get early builds. To enroll, submit nomination at https://aka.ms/JoinTap100

 

@Wilfried van Oosterhout ,  Skype user is necessary to allow systems to always load application to provides access to telephony services, such as emergency calling. Regulatory requirements around enabling easy access to dial pad requires us to load the application when device is powered. There are various other aspects of lock down that happen under Skype user. 

@ToddMethven , Yes, logs are purged after some time, I am getting more details on exact duration. The logs are only accessible to Administrators of the device which we recommend you only add IT admins with strong auth, such as MFA. 

@DBR14 , I am sorry that some of your devices got impacted by black screen issue. We are taking this very seriously and are working with Windows application deployment framework and Windows Store teams to get a fix out as soon as possible. This is our top priority.
If following troubleshooting guide doesn't fix the issue, please send us logs and we will help get these devices online. Support should not dismiss this issue saying it is known issue. Please PM me support person name and case number, and also send me links to logs that I can get to engineering team  asap. 

@GerryVS , We have no reports of join failure, so I am not sure what's going on. Please open a support ticker with logs so team can take a look and able to assist. 

Iron Contributor

@GerryVS this is what I received from Logitech because we utilize they Rally/Meetup for MTR

 

If you find that both the Tap and the Room displays are blank, re-boot the systems about 10 min apart at least twice but I had one customer need 4.  
Eventually video will return, but the main display and the Tap's images will have swapped.  
To fix that the trick is to get Windows to re-enumerate everything that is connected to it and that is where these three tricks come in. 

First, check if there are any Windows updates available.  If it there are, run them.  There isn't a specific fix or update needed, the Windows update tool causes the system to reconnect to all the peripherals which seems to get it to act normal.

Next, changing the port that the Tap is connected to and rebooting worked for my test system. Try changing ports on the NUC or swapping to a different Hub if you have a Rally system and doing a hard reboot, it may take more that once though, in my case it took 3.   Once it comes back, the image should return to normal, and you can swap back to the original configuration. 

Lastly, changing the Strong USB for a different copper cable then rebooting worked for 5 of my customers so far.  The odd thing is that initially swapping back to the Strong USB did not work, but the next morning it worked fine.  

If just re-booting does not get Teams or the Skype profile to appear, then you may need to re-image the NUC to get it back.  This has worked so far, but the issue is so new that I do not know if the systems will revert once all of the current updates are loaded during the nightly update check.  Attached are the instructions to re-image the NUCs, if you have any questions please let me know. 


Copper Contributor

@DBR14  Thanks a lot for sharing the info. The issue we experience is also on a Logitech TAP/Meetup combination, and of course it frustrates users when they plan a meeting, nicely displayed on the tap device but the join button is doing nothing beside giving the popup "select to join....."  so the touch works but somehow the join button doesn't bring you in the meting. 

So far I have 2 devices having the same issue, in 2 diferent locations in different tenants.

 

@Sohail Tariq  I will open a case tomorrow.

Microsoft

@GerryVS , Looks like meeting link is not being recognized. If users can join this meeting from other clients and just not MTR, please check if MTR is running in the Teams (default) and Skype mode and that calendar processing rules in exchange for these account do not delete comments (body). In any case, please make sure to add logs with the support ticket, we will be able to find out what might be wrong with the meeting join URL.   

Iron Contributor

@DBR14 @Sohail Tariq just FYI, we faced similar screen/touch control connectivity issues on our Logitech TAP devices because of faulty "strong" USB cables included in the bundle. Logitech had replaced USB cable vendor in ~Feb/Mar 2020 and proper cable should be black. Most likely DBR14 has cables from faulty batches. I recommend replacing the cable with alternative one (shorter is better)

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