Microsoft Teams Deployment Using SCCM [MSI Installers]

In this post we will be looking at Microsoft Teams deployment using SCCM. An year ago, I had published a post on deploying Microsoft teams using SCCM. At that time the Microsoft Teams installers were released as executable files. Which means there were no MSI installers for teams. While the steps mentioned in that post are still relevant for deployment, I was waiting for MSI installers. It is worth checking out the hardware and software requirements for Teams app before you deploy.

I prefer msi installers overs executable as SCCM can read info out of msi file. In addition to that, SCCM can pick up install, uninstall commands and detection method as well. But the good news is that for Microsoft Teams deployment using SCCM, MSI installers are available for download. You can read about that in this post. I wanted to test how the deployment works when using MSI installers. One change that I noticed is the way the teams app is deployed. With executable installer, you had to deploy the teams to users and not devices. With msi installers, you can now deploy Microsoft teams to systems.

How Microsoft Teams MSI deployment works

• Allows broad, IT-driven deployment. You can either use Group Policy, SCCM, or even third-party tools to deploy Teams.
• MSI installers can be used to deploy Teams, but not to deploy updates. This is because the client will auto update when it detects a new version is available from the service.
• You cannot control or manage Teams updates.
• If there is an update available, the update process begins after the users sign-in.
• When you deploy teams, it will auto launch for all users who sign in on that machine . With msi deployment you can add OPTIONS=”noAutoStart=true”. When you specify this, the teams won’t auto launch for users.
• When you install Microsoft Teams, the installer is placed in Program Files. Whenever a new user signs in, Teams will be installed and auto-started.

Microsoft Teams Uninstall – Extra Work

If you had deployed Microsoft Teams earlier and uninstalled it, you cannot simply deploy it again using MSI installer. The deployment will fail. This is because if the msi installer finds Teams app installed in the appdata folder, it will simply skip the install process for that user. To get this sorted, you need to uninstall Teams App installed for every user profile. Furthermore you have to delete directory recursively under %localappdata%\Microsoft\Teams. This is a tedious task for any admin. Thankfully there is a Microsoft Teams deployment cleanup script available for download. Using this script you can perform a clean up of teams installation. And if you are thinking of using SCCM to do this, yes you can deploy this script using SCCM. I might cover the steps to deploy the script in upcoming post.

Microsoft Teams Deployment Using SCCM [Using MSI Installers]

For Microsoft Teams deployment using SCCM, get the msi installers from here. If you have environment that is a mix of 32-bit and 64-bit OS, you can download both the installers. However Microsoft recommends deploying 64-bit teams. I have got both 32-bit and 64-bit teams installers downloaded. Both the installers are placed inside the sources folder.

To Deploy Microsoft Teams Using SCCM

Launch Configuration Manager console. Create new Application and on general page click Manually specify the application information. Click Next.

Specify some information about this application and click Next. On the Application Catalog page specify some more information and click Next.

In the next step add a deployment type. Specify the location of 32-bit teams installer first. Click Next.

Specify the information about 32-bit Teams app. Set installation behavior to Install for system.

In this step select the requirement type. Since we are packing both 32-bit and 64-bit installers, we want 32-bit teams deployed to 32-bit OS and 64-bit teams to 64 bit OS. Ensure that you select the operating system to be 32-bit OS. Click Next. Complete the remaining steps.

Once again add a new deployment type. Specify the content location of 64-Bit Teams app. Click Next.

Add some info about this deployment type. Click Next.

This time ensure you set the requirement type to OS and select 64-Bit OS.

Great !! So we have both 32-bit and 64-bit teams installers packaged. Click Next and complete the remaining steps in the wizard.

Deploy the Microsoft Teams apps to device collection. On the client machine launch Software Center. Select the Microsoft Teams app and click Install. Open Appenforce.log file to track installation progress. Try uninstalling the app and it works well.