Windows 10 Feature Upgrades Break Teams Machine-Wide Installer

Question

When releasing and installing 1909 or 20H2 Feature Upgrades via WSUS on our 1809 clients, Teams stops installing on new profiles via the Teams Machine-Wide Installer. We use Windows 10 Education edition.

After some research we have found the Feature Upgrade is removing the following reg key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\
Key name: TeamsMachineInstaller
Key type: REG_EXPAND_SZ
Key value: %ProgramFiles%\Teams Installer\Teams.exe --checkInstall --source=PROPLUS

This stops the Teams Machine-Wide Installer from running and installing on new profiles. This will cause us issues with our student lab and staff machines that are Feature upgraded via WSUS.

There is little discussion on the net about this issue which is surprising given that it looks like it’s a universal problem. Other universities have confirmed they also have the issue.

First question. Are there any plans to fix this or an officially recommended workaround/patch?

Second question around the functionality and implications of “--source=xxxxx”

I can’t find any documentation out there about it…. Is there any? If there is no patch incoming soon from MS we need to apply some sort of workaround as 1809 will be end-of-life soon. In order to apply a fix I need more understanding of this setting.

I can see this has been discussed once before with the person rolling out a Group Policy Preference: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/de6fff9d-c875-4217-ac57-5717beda3866/teamsmachineinstaller-registry-value-not-persistent-after-windows-10-upgrade?forum=msteams

I have played with the idea of rolling out the Group Policy Preference to apply the reg key again but we have a mix of installation methods for the Teams Machine-Wide Installer and thus have different settings for “--source=xxxxx” on our clients.

Initially we deployed the Teams .msi before we were deploying Office 365 client and then we mass deployed the O365 client at a later stage with the Teams Machine-Wide Installer included.

Machines with the Teams.msi install have: --source=default
Machines with O365 client Teams install have: --source=PROPLUS
Machines with Team.msi installed first and then O365 client installed later have: --source=default

This makes item level targeting for the Group Policy Preference difficult…. If I were to use a Group Policy Preference “workaround” I will likely need to set 1 setting for all of the clients e.g. If Teams.exe is present and Office 365.exe is present reg add “… --source=PROPLUS” What are the implications for clients that had the .msi first then O365 installed later with “--source=default” being changed to “--source=PROPLUS”? will it work? Can I set “--source=default” on all of my clients?

Answer 1

@Steven Crudgington ,

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Question 1. Are there any plans to fix this or an officially recommended workaround/patch?

Currently, I didn’t find related plans about this issue. We will work on this issue. Any update I will share with you here.

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Question 2. What are the implications for clients that had the .msi first then O365 installed later with “--source=default” being changed to “--source=PROPLUS”? will it work? Can I set “--source=default” on all of my clients?

From my experience, it just needs to set “source=default”. Whether Teams MSI file or Office 365 including Teams MSI file, the installer is launched when a user signs into a new Windows. Then, Teams will update itself automatically. It has no impact on Teams app.

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Answer 2

What about the (x86) in the path?
Key value: %ProgramFiles%\Teams Installer\Teams.exe --checkInstall --source=
should be?
Key value: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Teams Installer\Teams.exe --checkInstall --source=default

That is where my Teams Installer is?

Answer 3

I am having the same problem - but now it is 1/26/23 and my registry entry is still there - what else could be causing this?

Answer 4

We're facing the same issue.

@MS: Please provide a solution as soon as possible.

Answer 5

Has this been addressed? I just pushed the machine wide installer across my network and am experiencing the same issue. I luckily have a powershell script that can adjust the registry for all my users but jeez installing teams shouldn't be this much of a pain in the ass.