Microsoft Teams Outlook AddIn Hacks

README.md

Microsoft Teams Outlook AddIn Hacks

In projects inclined to the Microsoft ecosystem, Teams is probably the best collaboration option, especially if your team members are dislocated. Probably because using different Office 365 accounts i had a hard time getting the Teams-Addin to work with Outlook. This is a know problem as you can find numerous articles on the web from people asking for help about this issue. Microsoft is working to enhance the Teams / Outlook experience.

One especially helpful article was Missing Teams Outlook Add-in by Michael LaMontagne (@RealTimeUC). Michael was the only one trying to dig deeper into the nitty-gritty details of COM-registration between Outlook and the Teams .NET application, deployed using Squirrel.Windows (as most Electron-based desktop-apps on Windows, e.g. Slack etc.).

He finally got the Teams-AddIn working by duplicating registry keys from a working machine. However, after reviewing the Teams & Teams Meeting AddIn startup behavior, it's even simpler.

The Microsoft Teams application always COM-registers the Team-Addin for Outlook. However, if not enabled for your Outlook/Office365 subscription it deletes a few registry keys on startup, namely HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\TeamsAddin.Connect - so Outlook simply won't load it on startup.

So here is how to hack the Teams Meeting Button into Outlook, cf. start_outlook_teams.bat:

1. Start Teams (deletes registry keys!)
2. Add registry keys from enable_teams.reg
3. Start Outlook

Enjoy the New Teams Meeting ribbon button in the calendar view!

Unfortunately, you will have repeat this everytime you restart Teams.

enable_teams.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList]
"TeamsAddin.Connect"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList]
"TeamsAddin.Connect"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\TeamsAddin.Connect]
"Description"="Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office"
"FriendlyName"="Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office"
"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003

outlook_teams_addin.png

start_outlook_teams.bat

@echo off
setlocal
echo Starting Teams. Press any key when ready.
start "Teams" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Corporation\Microsoft Teams.lnk"
pause > NUL

echo.
echo Enable Outlook Teams-AddIn (regedit)...
regedit /S "%~dp0enable_teams.reg"

echo.
echo Starting Outlook...
start "Outlook" "%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Outlook.lnk"

echo You should see the 'New Teams Meeting' button in Outlook calendar view.
pause
endlocal

Hi Marcel, great article

Is there a way that Teams meeting details can be added to every new Outlook meeting without the user having to click the addin ?

thanks

Hi @anthony-field. I don't think so.

Teams deletes registry entries on startup? In a case under my hands, it also resets the Skype connector to load, even though the user had disabled or even removed that Outlook add-in.

Awesome Thanks!!

Many thanks for the scripts!
I tried that just today and I had to make two adoptions in order to make it run:

1.in the .bat file, the .lnk was one folder level above:
"%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Teams.lnk"
instead of
"%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Corporation\Microsoft Teams.lnk"

2. On the third value in the .reg file, I had to change the name of the Registry value to "TeamsAddin.FastConnect"
   from "TeamsAddin.Connect"

I have current version of Teams, downloaded and installed today. Version shows: 1.3.00.13565

Not sure if any of those were caused by the version I'm using, so thought it might be of help for others, too.

I'm trying to disable the Add-in on a RDS environment. I tried using GPO to change the LoadBehavior value to 0 and it seems to work until Teams or Outlook launches. Reading your explanation I'm thinking the value changes when Teams launches.

Any suggestions and how to break the add-in to keep it from launching with Outlook?

hi, i tried to make it work, not disable it.. must of my issues are in the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\TeamsMeetingAddin\1.0.20244.4\x64\Microsoft.Teams.AddinLoader.dll path so if you add a .dead file to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\TeamsMeetingAddin\version number\ it should kill it..

…

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 9:48 PM heavylight117 ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------ I'm trying to disable the Add-in on a RDS environment. I tried using GPO to change the LoadBehavior value to 0 and it seems to work until Teams or Outlook launches. Reading your explanation I'm thinking the value changes when Teams launches. Any suggestions and how to break the add-in to keep it from launching with Outlook? — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://gist.github.com/4d4932f57fe52565365eea3544e10ac6#gistcomment-3592937>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABU7XJHRKUL4NBWKAAAGEFDSZX2H3ANCNFSM4L2IEB6A> .

For me the issue was the Microsoft Store version of Outlook. After 2 days of hair-pulling, I found out that one can just go to office.com and click on "Install Office" on top right. It gives you a single exe to install office. Install it, and restart Teams and AFTER that Outlook. All done.

Hi all, by any chance has anyone ported this to Powershell?

Hi @eddiejmccabe,

Not me. Go ahead.

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