4 ms·

"Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and

"Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers" Is teams auto installed with the Office suite and can it not be uninstalled?

microcolonel 6y ago
I think the application proper can be disabled, but it's built into basically every Office application at this point, as far as I know. It's like wondering if you can uninstall ffmpeg from an Electron app.
ndespres 6y ago
Yes it is auto-installed and auto starts and is very annoying to get rid of, as a sysadmin. It also installs itself per-user, so non-admins get prompted constantly to install it themselves and can do so even with limited privileges. It is persistent.
- nojito 6y ago
  You can disable teams entirely from your deployment.
  - ndespres 6y ago
    Good luck doing that when it was automatically enabled and deployed, so now users have data on it already.
    - jankiehodgpodge 6y ago
      If you're deploying office anyway you simply remove teams from the config XML for the installer. Pretty simple really.
    - threeseed 6y ago
      So then give users time to migrate to an alternative and shut it down.
- jedieaston 6y ago
  What's the annoyance? It's an MSI. Use msiexec /x to remove it (probably via PDQ Deploy or SCCM or a PowerShell Script), and then block the installer from running again during an Office install with GPO [0]. It's definitely easier than cleaning up some of the other garbageware in Pro. 0: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/teams-install#use-group-policy-to-control-the-installation-of-microsoft-teams https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/teams-install#...
freehunter 6y ago
I’m not sure on Teams specifically but years ago (last time I tried to install the Office suite) you had to install basically all or nothing. I just wanted OneNote but the installer forced me to add Word and Excel and Powerpoint, similar to this forum post: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_install-mso_win10/installing-only-particular-office-365-programs/9ebb27d4-1084-42e7-b84a-c5dd76e9232c https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_... If they’ve added Teams to that installer, I’m not surprised.
- gruez 6y ago
  >you had to install basically all or nothing. but from the link you gave: >BUT, if you are willing to invest a little effort, there is a business specific tool you can use. It is called the "Office Deployment Tool". You will have to edit a simple text only "XML" file that tells the tool what you want it to do.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    When I had this issue 6 or 7 years ago that thread didn’t exist to explain that to me.
kevingadd 6y ago
Under normal circumstances Teams can trivially be uninstalled - it's just an Electron app. I have Office and Teams installed on my PC and can freely uninstall or install either of them, and I had to install Teams manually. The android and iOS Teams apps are definitely manually uninstallable. My guess is they may be referring to enterprise setups or perhaps an enterprise office 365 installer. I'm using 365 but not an enterprise 365 account so I can't speak for how it would behave there. Bundling Teams in with the other stuff that gets installed might be an option individual companies can opt into.
raxxorrax 6y ago
Certainly wasn't in our case (EU E3 or E5 licenses). You can also disable the license for all users. Now, the practice of enabling licenses for new apps by default could be improved...
- corty 6y ago
  You can disable the license, but it keeps nagging all your users to ask IT for a MSTeams account/license... "btw, teams is installed, try here" "login failed, maybe you are not allowed by your admins, nag them about it" repeat every 2 weeks
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    True, that may be the case. There is config.office.com where you can adjust a lot of behavior (you need an admin account I believe). If teams gets installed with office on default settings, you can certainly change it there. However, I don't think we have changed anything there and it didn't get installed automatically.

microcolonel 6y ago

I think the application proper can be disabled, but it's built into basically every Office application at this point, as far as I know. It's like wondering if you can uninstall ffmpeg from an Electron app.

ndespres 6y ago

Yes it is auto-installed and auto starts and is very annoying to get rid of, as a sysadmin. It also installs itself per-user, so non-admins get prompted constantly to install it themselves and can do so even with limited privileges. It is persistent.

nojito 6y ago
You can disable teams entirely from your deployment.
- ndespres 6y ago
  Good luck doing that when it was automatically enabled and deployed, so now users have data on it already.
  - jankiehodgpodge 6y ago
    If you're deploying office anyway you simply remove teams from the config XML for the installer. Pretty simple really.
  - threeseed 6y ago
    So then give users time to migrate to an alternative and shut it down.
jedieaston 6y ago
What's the annoyance? It's an MSI. Use msiexec /x to remove it (probably via PDQ Deploy or SCCM or a PowerShell Script), and then block the installer from running again during an Office install with GPO [0]. It's definitely easier than cleaning up some of the other garbageware in Pro. 0: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/teams-install#use-group-policy-to-control-the-installation-of-microsoft-teams https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/teams-install#...

freehunter 6y ago

I’m not sure on Teams specifically but years ago (last time I tried to install the Office suite) you had to install basically all or nothing. I just wanted OneNote but the installer forced me to add Word and Excel and Powerpoint, similar to this forum post: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_install-mso_win10/installing-only-particular-office-365-programs/9ebb27d4-1084-42e7-b84a-c5dd76e9232c https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_... If they’ve added Teams to that installer, I’m not surprised.

gruez 6y ago
>you had to install basically all or nothing. but from the link you gave: >BUT, if you are willing to invest a little effort, there is a business specific tool you can use. It is called the "Office Deployment Tool". You will have to edit a simple text only "XML" file that tells the tool what you want it to do.
- freehunter 6y ago
  When I had this issue 6 or 7 years ago that thread didn’t exist to explain that to me.

kevingadd 6y ago

Under normal circumstances Teams can trivially be uninstalled - it's just an Electron app. I have Office and Teams installed on my PC and can freely uninstall or install either of them, and I had to install Teams manually. The android and iOS Teams apps are definitely manually uninstallable. My guess is they may be referring to enterprise setups or perhaps an enterprise office 365 installer. I'm using 365 but not an enterprise 365 account so I can't speak for how it would behave there. Bundling Teams in with the other stuff that gets installed might be an option individual companies can opt into.

raxxorrax 6y ago

Certainly wasn't in our case (EU E3 or E5 licenses). You can also disable the license for all users. Now, the practice of enabling licenses for new apps by default could be improved...

corty 6y ago
You can disable the license, but it keeps nagging all your users to ask IT for a MSTeams account/license... "btw, teams is installed, try here" "login failed, maybe you are not allowed by your admins, nag them about it" repeat every 2 weeks
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  True, that may be the case. There is config.office.com where you can adjust a lot of behavior (you need an admin account I believe). If teams gets installed with office on default settings, you can certainly change it there. However, I don't think we have changed anything there and it didn't get installed automatically.