Microsoft Teams Collab and Chat VDI support, Install into Program Files directory with manual client update

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is virtualization technology that hosts a desktop operating system and applications on a centralized remote or cloud server. The user logs in via a VDI client machine.

Technically, you have been able to run Microsoft Teams desktop client (Electron) in a VDI environment for some time, as long as you turned off all the audio/video/media functionality. However, this wasn’t very practical for the typical way VDI is deployed and managed, up until now Teams desktop App would install in the user App folder this means it couldn’t be placed on the base image of non-persistent VDI environments.

Audio/Video still isn’t supported on VDI today, it is coming in the future from partners like Citrix, but now Microsoft officially supports VDI for collaboration (teams) and chat with a new option to install the client from MSI into the Program Files directory of the base image.

Requirements

From the docs wording, this is apparently supported on all “leading” VDI vendors, which is a bit vague. “The Teams app has been validated on leading virtualization solution providers. With multiple market providers, consult your virtualization solution provider to ensure minimum requirements are met.”

The supported operating systems for VM are:

• Windows 10 and later
• Windows Server 2012 R2 and later

Interestingly, Teams on VDI isn’t automatically updated like the way that non-VDI Teams clients are. You have to update the VM base image by installing a new MSI. You must uninstall the current version to update to a newer version. Microsoft anticipates administrators will have to update the client in the base image monthly to stay up to date enough to correctly work alongside the cloud service.

I tried installing it on a VM to test, but the installer is doing some kind of check for a “VDI environment”

Install instructions and details: Teams for Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure