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

change password