Windows 11 gets chatty as Teams integration turns up There are few constants in life, though death and taxes spring to mind, as does Microsoft forcing its Teams collab platform down the throat of any passing users. As such, the promised Teams integration has put in an appearance in Windows 11 – for a lucky subset of Windows Insiders, that is. Our Intel-based Windows 11 Preview …
Microsoft, come here please. Just a short chat.
Your job is to make sure the computer runs. Simple, right? Run. The. Computer. No more, no less.
You want to develop extra bits of software for people, that's grand. But keep them separate from the OS. Regardless of what you think, not everyone is going to want everything you make. Stop forcing them to swallow it anyway.
Now get off my lawn!
[as a complete aside, I'm waiting with baited breath for the day where we get a borked sign with the ad overlayed with a Teams chat window as some poor sod tries to chat with a billboard]
Unfortunately the institutions that are supposed to protect us, consumers are asleep at the wheel.
I mean, Microsoft, Google and Apple should all be heavily fined for integrating all this nonsense into the operating systems.
Things like app stores, communication software, browsers should all be developed and provided by 3rd parties.
Q. When is an OS not an OS?
A. When it does anything other than facilitating the utilisation of desired software on the appropriate hardware.
Yes, other OSs do come with complete suites of applications and utilities, but they're optional. You don't need Thor wielding his hammer to remove them if they're installed inadvertently or as a trial (eg. Win10: remove MS News app, lose the calendar). That's if you can remove Windows' toys at all.
"We imagine that the ever-tighter integration of Teams with Windows might concern some of the Redmond cloud vendor's messaging rivals."
Will Microsoft land on Park Lane, or will they land on Chance and get "Do not pass Go...."? Because it's defo monopoly territory.
Will Microsoft land on Park Lane, or will they land on Chance and get "Do not pass Go...."? Because it's defo monopoly territory.
I'm (still) hoping for, "GO TO JAIL! Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200."
Oh, and BTW, In my versions of Monopoly, its Park Place. What have you Brits done to Monopoly?!?
I used Skye for several years, and Lync/SfB for a few, and neither of them ever came close to the astounding resource hogging of Teams.
No doubt part of that is due to Electron, which specializes in inefficiency; but a lot of it is no doubt due to the general shittiness of the Teams UI (just try ... to ... scroll ... a ... channel ... back ... a ... few ... pages) and its constant network-bothering.
During conference calls Teams frequently pegs the CPU. One of my coworkers had it actually overheat his laptop to the point where it shut down the other day.
With any luck it will go as well as last time. It will be challenged in court, found to be a nreach of monopoly law, and MS will be forced to offer an unencumbered versionof Windows and a choice screen. The only difference will be that this time it will only spend 5 minutes in court because it is so clearly the same offence.
Unfortunately, after the last year of working from home, I now associate Teams with covid19 / 2020-2021 so I'm not a fan of seeing it in Windows 11 - gonna make my blood pressure go up everytime I boot my PC.
I hope there is an option for something along the lines of:
Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName "Microsoft Teams"
Oh great. First it was the ever insecure Explorer you couldn't get rid of, then it was slow poke Edge, now we have to take the much hated Teams as part of the OS??? What ever happened to making Windows secure from all these flagrant hackers that seem to waltz in, steal your data and demand millions in bit coin to get your data back? Why isn't Microsoft focusing in things that would actually benefit users instead of foisting their useless and despised applications on users that don't want this junk? More importantly, why isn't the Justice Department looking at these anti-competitive actions that are harming the market and users?
So those of us in the Win world will be using Teams - get over it - anyone remember Netscape?
The thing that really frustrates is that M$ are pushing us into Teams and all my clients are using it...but despite it being the No1 technical request for Teams for over 3 years - it stall cant support more than one login.
I am consulting with three clients - who all use their corporate Teams.
M$ have done a reasonable job with Outlook (finally) where the client can be connected to multiple mail accounts.
Not Teams
Depending on the governance of corp they may NOT allow guests and/or web access.
I have to log in/out 20 times a day to join/exit the Teams client for Corp A vs. B vs. C
If Teams is the new Black according to M$ at least provide multi-account support that has been in Outlook for some time.
Agree with the need for fast switching of accounts. It works in the iOS/iPadOS versions, so why not the desktop? I've only got four accounts to routinely juggle (plus two more for when I need full admin rights). My main desktop is a relatively old iMac and that has one Teams app (only running when needed - shut down when not); I have a second version running (again, only when needed) in a Win10 VM. My iPhone will notify me if there's activity. I've found that Edge works quite well for Team on the Mac - it struggles with calls but, fortunately, my other two accounts use Zoom for video calls and I only need to access those for chat and file sharing.
It's clunky but works. I'm basically retired and my use is supporting a couple of small, local charities, and not intense. However, Microsoft, I shouldn't have to find cludges to make enterprise software work.
I have been using personal computers from before MS-DOS (moronically stupid- dumbass operating system). I need the OS to be platform for me to run applications on. Software like Teams, Skype, IE, etc. should be standalone applications that I can add or remove at my discretion. If an application is supplied with the OS it must be readily removed and so I can replace them with something else.
Yup, but like mobiles, these companies think it's their machine/platform. You changing it is unwanted to them.
As someone said recently you will likely not own any device in 15 years! Sad to say they are probably right. Routers, media devices, Alexa (and it's ilk), even door bells are all like this.
If you use free software, (which I do on mobiles and computers), things are maybe (often just a little) harder to setup. Most people will take the convenience over their freedom every day. My sympathy for their complains about lock-in is very small, esp professionals in this area who should know better.
I'm amused, for example, that people accept that rooting your phone should stop you running banking apps, for example, hell it's my phone and it's okay on my computer to bank with! But that will likely go in a later windows version, as this frog is further boiled.
Wrong!
They know that it is their machine. You installed their OS on it and that makes it theirs to control as they see fit.
You will have updates
You will have reboots when you are doing something important
and now...
You will have Teams and it will be running all the time even if you don't want it.
Nanny SatNad knows best !
After all my years in IT I can't believe I'm posting this (hence the A/C), but ... -- despite its issues, resource-hogging, lack of proper operation in remote desktops, my inablility to fix it if it breaks, being not-as-good-as-Zoom within audio/video calls, and missing important features -- ... I rather like Teams (and Sharepoint/Onedrive). I think Microsoft could possibly be onto something here, where Google et al have completely failed... assuming they get it right of course.
I had a bit of a lightbulb moment with it (and Sharepoint) a short while back, and am now of the growing opinion that there is some kind of potential here for the (very non-technical, Office 365 email-using) organisation that I'm part of. The centralisation of access to communications, files and other apps/resources into one easy-to-use (relatively!) app that works across all devices could potentially be very useful. There's lots of creases to iron out, but.... maybe?
I even quite like Edge...
I'm going to Hell, aren't I?
A/C for obvious reasons.
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