Patch My PC Feature and Application Request

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Status SHIPPED
Categories Application Request
Created by Ahmed hassanein
Created on Apr 16, 2021

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Merged idea
This idea has been merged into another idea. To comment or vote on this idea, please visit PATCHMYPC-I-377 Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams Machine-Wide Installer Merged

Machine Wide Installer is responsible for installing a copy of Teams to a user profile whenever a new user logs into the computer. The Update will ensure that shared devices will have the latest version of Teams Machine-Wide installer. The update is available in other 3 party patching solution.

  • Admin
    Adam Cook
    Reply
    |     Jul 9, 2021

    This product exists in our catalogue today as an application, however not as an update. The reason for not supplying it as an update today is detailed below.

    The process of updating Teams for all users on a system would involve a scripted action to recursively remove it from all user profiles on the system before running the MSI, as detailed here. Once all copies are deleted in all user profiles, then we need to run the new MSI to update the system-wide component in Program Files.

    This is because when a user first launches Teams, it copies the binaries from Program Files into the user's AppData. The user's copy in AppData is automatically updated by itself, independently of the copy in Program Files. This is detailed herein the first paragraph.

    Microsoft's recommendation is clear on this,detail here in the second paragraph and pasted below:

    Do not use the MSI to deploy updates, because the client will auto update when it detects a new version is available from the service. To re-deploy the latest installer use the process of redeploying MSI described below. If you deploy an older version of the MSI package, the client will auto-update (except in VDI environments) when possible for the user. If a very old version gets deployed, the MSI will trigger an app update before the user is able to use Teams.

    If we ignored all of this and added Teams as an update anyway, you will more than likely see patch compliance reports telling you there's a mismatch for the version of Teams users' are running versus the one stored in Program Files. In my view, this provides little value and adds more confusion.

    However, there is value in wanting to make sure the copy in Program Files is up-to-date in the scenario of shared computers. We have seen reports from customers where Teams is blocked from launching by Microsoft if the copy in Program Files has not been patched in ~1 year. This causes problems for users logging on to a device for the first time where the copy in Program Files is old. In that scenario it doesn't matter whether you deploy the update or application for Teams, so we may as well recommend deploying Teams as a required application.

  • Casey O'Rourke
    Reply
    |     May 25, 2021

    This is already offered via PatchMyPC and has been for some time now. It's called "Microsoft Teams".

    Additionally, you can also deploy it via MECM (current branch) using the Office Deployment Tool if you have an Office 365 subscription.

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