Close Menu
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Sunday, July 13
    X (Twitter) LinkedIn
    All about Endpoint Management
    • Home
    All about Endpoint Management
    Home»Active Directory»How to disable or enable auto start of Teams application using GPO

    How to disable or enable auto start of Teams application using GPO

    Eswar KonetiBy Eswar KonetiNovember 09, 11:03 am3 Mins Read Active Directory 139,230 Views
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit

    When we started of with office 365 project ,one of the key application to be delivered to users is Teams application. Teams is the primary client for intelligent communications in Office 365, replacing Skype for Business Online over time. When we started deploying the teams clients to windows computers using SCCM Configmgr ,teams will auto startup upon computer restart/user logoff & log in and is by design .

    When the Teams application is installed on windows PC (it doesn't require admin rights to install and installation location is C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams ) ,it has auto-start application setting enabled by default. With this setting ,it create an entry in the registry in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

    with value com.squirrel.Teams.Teams and data C:\Users\eswar.koneti\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\Update.exe --processStart "Teams.exe" --process-start-args "--system-initiated" as shown below.

    image

    With the initial deployment ,we decided to remove this auto startup using group policy  for all users and let user start the application manually as they already using lync and teams is additional collaboration platform to use.

    image

    There are 2 reasons for us to remove the teams auto-start application using GPO.

    1) we don't want every one to start using the application from the time we deploy silently to the end user PC’s

    2)For those it got installed ,users complain that ,loading of teams when user login takes a while which slow down the PC.

    How to delete the Auto-start application of teams  using GPO:

    So ,to delete the auto-startup ,we use GPO (best way to remove this) by simply creating a registry key with delete and apply at OU level.

    Following is the registry key used in GPO:

    Location: User configuration\Preferences\windows settings\registry

    Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

    Key path: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

    Value Name: com.squirrel.Teams.Teams

    image

    So far looks good but when we are actually reaching completion of office 365 project that delivers every one to use Teams application ,we started sunset lync application.

    When we disabled lync for users users started asking for auto-start application for teams and we already deleted it using GPO for everyone initially.

    How to Enable the Auto-start application of teams using GPO (back to beginning) :

    The registry key that was created by the application in the registry key was removed earlier and now if we want that to be back ,either user must go the application and enable the setting or we push the registry key using GPO.

    Since i already noted the registry key that was created by the application so i created a GPO with following syntax and applied at  OU level.

    image

    As you can see above, the value data (C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\Update.exe --processStart "Teams.exe" --process-start-args "--system-initiated" ) that we used is same as the one that we deleted initially, but this doesn't work on end-user PC during logon.

    The GPO applied correctly and teams never load automatically so i copied the syntax and tried opening in cmd window and it works but auto-start do not work.

    so after spending sometime reviewing  ,finally fixed it by changing the command line from system-initiated to user-initiated

    clip_image002

    image

    Value Data: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\Update.exe --processStart "Teams.exe" --process-start-args "--user-initiated"

    If the user have teams installed (if you did not change the default install location)  ,this GPO will launch teams automatically during login .

    What happens if the computer doesn't have teams installed but still the GPO applied ? does it pop-up any error ? No ,there wont be any error or pop-up on the computers that doesn't have teams installed and you are safe to apply to everyone who want to have the auto-start application enabled.

    Hope it helps!

    auto start com.squirrel.Teams.Teams CurrentVersion GPO office 365 prevent auto Run startup of teams teams
    Share. Twitter LinkedIn Email Facebook Reddit

    Related Posts

    Exporting Intune Win32 Apps with All Properties Using PowerShell and Microsoft Graph

    June 30, 7:01 pm

    Troubleshooting Windows Hello for Business PIN Reset Issues – Something went wrong

    March 06, 9:48 pm

    Migrate Microsoft 365 Updates from SCCM/MECM to Intune for Co-Managed Devices

    February 11, 9:50 pm

    22 Comments

    1. Erick on February 21, 2024 7:21 AM

      Hi, was this ever solved for new versions of Teams?
      Thanks

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on October 16, 2024 9:14 PM

        Hi Erick,
        yes, it has been solved and blog post on how to disable the auto start of new microsoft teams https://eskonr.com/2024/08/disabling-auto-start-for-the-new-microsoft-teams/

        thanks,
        Eswar

        Reply
    2. Erick on February 21, 2024 7:16 AM

      Hi, was this ever solved for new versions of Teams?
      Thanks

      Reply
    3. Eric Commons on January 30, 2024 11:28 PM

      This no longer works on NEW Teams. Anyone find a solution instead of changing the JSON file for each user?

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on February 10, 2024 10:59 PM

        Hi Eric,
        There is no easy way for new teams because, the new teams installs in "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\MSTeams_23335.232.2637.4844_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\ms-teams.exe" with version name in the folder which is dynamic all the time when there is new version to update.

        But, the default is ON in the new teams unless user disable it.
        Have you tried it?

        Thanks,
        Eswar

        Reply
    4. Deen on April 8, 2023 12:27 AM

      is there any way we can push registry change via script ?

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on April 16, 2023 11:43 AM

        Hi,
        you can use powershell script something like this to remove the teams key from the currently logged on user:

        $keyPath = "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run"
        $keyName = "com.squirrel.Teams.Teams"

        # Check if the key exists before attempting to remove it
        if (Test-Path "$keyPath\$keyName") {
        Remove-ItemProperty -Path $keyPath -Name $keyName
        Write-Output "Registry key '$keyName' removed successfully from '$keyPath'."
        } else {
        Write-Output "Registry key '$keyName' not found in '$keyPath'."
        }

        Thanks,
        Eswar

        Reply
    5. Matt on May 19, 2022 9:46 AM

      Hi Eswar,

      I did the GPO you mentioned and did not work for me, what else I can do?

      Hive HKEY_CURRENT_USER
      Key path SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
      Value name com.squirrel.Teams.Teams

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on May 24, 2022 9:57 PM

        Hi Matt, I am going to try this solution in my lab and let you know the results this week.

        Thanks,
        Eswar

        Reply
    6. Dennis C on April 22, 2022 8:06 AM

      Hi Eswar, thanks for this post. I got the GPO pushing but for some reason the key reads

      C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\Update.exe --processStart "Teams.exe" --process-start-args "--system-initiated" rather than "--user-initiated"

      I set this under the User Configuration as mentioned in your post but still it doesn't accept the "--user-initiated".

      What's strange is that the GPO is being applied on the endpoint. I verified this by running "GPRESULTS"

      Performed a GPUPDATE /F and multiple restarts.

      Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks for your time and your post again.

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on May 4, 2022 9:05 PM

        Hi Dennis,
        does it work when you run the script or registry using the following keys manually?

        Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
        Value: com.squirrel.Teams.Teams
        Data: %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Teams\Update.exe --processStart "Teams.exe" --process-start-args "--system-initiated"

        Thanks,
        Eswar

        Reply
    7. Pingback: microsoft teams registry entries - loginfinance.com

    8. Pingback: microsoft teams client registry settings - loginfinance.com

    9. Kevin Curtis on October 21, 2020 3:14 AM

      nice article. what we are looking to have is the Teams icon not to show on the desktop. not sure how to get around it because it points to the Updater.exe which is an open source code and it is running on login. Trying to figure out how to prevent it from running on login.
      Thanks,
      Kevin

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on October 21, 2020 11:24 AM

        Hi,
        you want to change the teams icon on the desktop or remote the shortcut?
        For teams icon, you can have a script that runs for each user and change the icon.
        For teams icon, the shortcut location is C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\Update.exe --processStart "Teams.exe" which should have the correct teams icon.

        Thanks,
        Eswar

        Reply
    10. Rachel Wulffenstein on June 27, 2020 3:43 AM

      Hello, we are deploying Teams to our virtual (VMware Horizon) desktop. I have the program installed on my image and published to the desktop pool (after taking a snapshot). The problem I have is when I login to my virtual desktop the 1st time after the teams install, the teams application just hangs, a white box appears on the screen and never goes away. If I logout of the desktop and grab a new one, teams loads just fine. I do not want the user to login to a desktop, have teams fail to load and have them logout and back in. That won't go over well. Any suggestions?

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on June 29, 2020 12:26 AM

        Hi,
        Looks like the teams installation did not finish successfully to the logged on user.
        The teams installation happens into %localappdata%\microsoft\teams. check if the teams installed successfully and can launch it from the installation location.

        Thanks,
        Eswar

        Reply
    11. Henry on August 20, 2019 8:06 AM

      Hi Eswar,
      Nice article. Very helpful. Would the new GPO be setup under user or computer configuration? Both have options for registry.

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on August 20, 2019 8:10 AM

        Hi Henry,
        It is under user configuration and is said in the blog post.

        Regards
        Eswar

        Reply
    12. Baffin River on June 8, 2019 12:21 AM

      Hi Eswar,
      Your article is very helpful. Thank you for sharing. I am trying to deploy Teams. I am using group policy method and I referred the below Microsoft article
      https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/msi-deployment#disable-auto-launch-for-the-msi-installer
      I am trying to disable the autostart as mentioned in the article using below switch
      msiexec /i Teams_windows_x64.msi OPTIONS=”noAutoStart=true”

      Do I need to use ORCA tool to add these options, if yes where in ORCA I need to add these options,
      Thank you for your help
      Baffin

      Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on June 8, 2019 12:24 AM

        Hi,
        No need of arca tool. Simply deploy the MSI with the switch and it works or you can use gpo to disable the auto start like I mentioned in the article.

        Thanks
        Eswar

        Reply
      • Eswar Koneti on June 25, 2019 10:58 PM

        Hi,
        You dont need to use ORCA ,ust simply deploy the MSI with the option no auto-start then it is taken care. If you want to delete the auto start of teams, you can also create GPO with delete option in the registry and deploy to users that will take care of it. This is what we did initially during start of the project and later made it auto start using the GPO hence the blog post.

        Thanks,
        Eswar

        Reply

    Leave a ReplyCancel reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Sign Up

    Get email notifications for new posts.

    Author

    I’m Eswar Koneti ,a tech enthusiast, security advocate, and your guide to Microsoft Intune and Modern Device Management. My goal? To turn complex tech into actionable insights for a streamlined management experience. Let’s navigate this journey together!

    Support

    Awards

    Archives

    © Copyright 2009-2024 Eswar Koneti, All rights reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.