Windows 10: Teams Chat taskbar integration is being removed from Windows 11

Microsoft is removing the Teams Chat taskbar integration from Windows 11. The app's menu is being replaced with a plain shortcut.

Windows 11 will soon let you unpin Teams Chat app


When Windows 11 was launched, Microsoft went a little nuts and decided to split a chat service that was meant for work and school, and released Teams for Personal users. The problem was that you could not access your contacts from work, so it had an entirely different set of contacts. And since nobody used it, it just ended up as bloatware.



Hey, couldn't we disable the Chat icon in Windows 11 already? Well, that is true, but it only hid the icon, it did not remove the app per se. Does that mean Teams is no longer pre-installed on Windows 11? Tough luck, the app is still pre-installed. This time, however, the Teams Chat taskbar integration is being removed, i.e. the flyout menu and its functionality are being deprecated. The old icon will be replaced with a Teams Chat shortcut, which acts like a regular pinned app. So essentially you don't have to jump through some screens to hide the icon, you can just right-click on it to unpin the icon. From what I can tell, you will have to uninstall the app manually, but that's quite easy to do. Some reports claim that the app gets removed when you unpin it from the Taskbar, I cannot verify whether this is true.

One thing's for sure, as Windows Central puts it, Microsoft is killing Windows 11's Chat feature. The report also mentions that the change is in the latest dev channel build of the Windows Insider Program, which is Build 23481. I installed the latest version in my virtual machine, but the option doesn't show up for me, probably because it is being A/B tested. I wonder if the removal of the integration would have a positive impact on the system's performance. Either way this is surely for the better, if you want to use Teams, you open the shortcut to get the app. If you don't like it, discard it with a couple of clicks. This is how it should have been in the first place. Hopefully, this change will roll out to the stable channel of the operating system soon, there's a good chance it might.

But, why is Microsoft doing this? Is it finally listening to feedback from users? Probably not. A blog article by Windows Latest suggests that it is likely that the Redmond company could have made the change after some antitrust concerns in the European Union came to light. In 2020, Slack viewed the inclusion of Teams in Microsoft Office products as giving its rival an unfair competitive advantage, and raised a complaint with regulators in the EU. Recently, a spokesperson for the European Commission had revealed that other complainants had brought up the issue as well, and that they were assessing the situation. Now, if we could only get the EU to tell Microsoft to fix File Explorer.

Bye bye Teams Chat, you won't be missed.

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Windows 11 - Remove Teams forever

Hi SrvInfo

As I understand it, teams will be reinstalled if the user turns on the taskbar icon and / or clicks the taskbar icon.

If it is reinstalling after a period of time, this may be unintended behaviour and I suggest you use the feedback hub to inform the development team.

I do have one suggestion, assuming you are running windows 11 pro.

turn off the taskbar Icon

settings -> Personalisation -> Taskbar, turn off Chat

click start, type gpedit and press enter

navigate to Computer Configuration -> Windows Components -> Chat

double click on configures the Chat icon on the taskbar

select Enabled from the top radio buttons

under Options select Disabled and click Ok

this will prevent users from changing the option in taskbar settings.

then uninstall it if you wish either through settings or powershell, and see if it still comes back.

 

Taskbar "Chat" button removal

Hello Rhonda,

In addition to the other posts, here are some more options to permanently remove the Chat button on the taskbar.

Add or Remove Chat Button on Taskbar in Windows 11 Tutorial

Add or Remove Microsoft Teams Icon on Taskbar System Tray in Windows 11 Tutorial

 

Chat from Microsoft Teams begins rolling out to Windows 11 Insiders

Source: First Preview of Chat from Microsoft Teams begins rolling out to Windows Insiders