Windows 11 comes with Chat from Microsoft Teams which is ‘a signature, lightweight experience brought right to the Taskbar to let Teams personal account users quickly start a video call or chat with friends and family.’¹ The problem with this is that it is only available for Personal accounts and not for Work or School accounts. 

The new Teams experience on Windows 11 and Chat are intended for personal Microsoft accounts and will be available only to individuals using such accounts.

With this installed by default, and Teams for Work/School, you will have two versions of Microsoft Teams installed locally. This can be confusing to end users.

Uninstall Chat for Teams with Intune

Save the following PowerShell script locally, we will need to upload this to Intune

$MSTeams = "MicrosoftTeams"

$WinPackage = Get-AppxPackage | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq $MSTeams}
$ProvisionedPackage = Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where-Object { $_.DisplayName -eq $WinPackage }
If ($null -ne $WinPackage) 
{
    Remove-AppxPackage -Package $WinPackage.PackageFullName
} 

If ($null -ne $ProvisionedPackage) 
{
    Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -online -Packagename $ProvisionedPackage.Packagename
}

$WinPackageCheck = Get-AppxPackage | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq $MSTeams}
$ProvisionedPackageCheck = Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where-Object { $_.DisplayName -eq $WinPackage }
If (($WinPackageCheck) -or ($ProvisionedPackageCheck))
{
    throw
}

Navigate to the Intune Admin Portal > Scripts > + Add, Give your new Script a proper name and description and then click Next

Next, select your script location and enable “Run this script using the logged on credentials“, then click Next

Select any Scope Tags, then click Next

In Assignments, add group(s) this script will run against. In my example I selected the “All Users” group. 

Finally, Review your configuration. If there are no issues, click Add

Important! Now just because its uninstalled does NOT mean it will be absent from the task bar. It will still be there and if the user clicks on the icon it will reinstall the application for them. Go to the next session to remove the icon from the task bar using Intune so your users won’t accidentally re-install the program.

Remove the Application from the Task Bar

To remove the application from the Windows 11 task bar, we need to create an Intune configuration profile. Reviewing Microsoft Policy CSP page we can see they have a CSP available to us. 

Go to the Intune Management Portal > Devices > Configuration Profile and click “+ Create Profile”. The Platform will be “Windows 10 or later”, Profile type will be Templates, and Template Name will be Custom

In the next pane, give your new configuration profile a proper name and description and then click Next

In the Configuration Settings panel, click Add and enter the following:

Name: RemoveChat

Description: Removes Windows 11 Teams Chat

OMA-URI: ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/Experience/ConfigureChatIcon

Data Type: Integer

Value: 3

Give your policy any Scope Tags if necessary 

In the Assignments section, apply the policy to any Groups you want

Next, apply any Applicability Rules you’d like. I have selected to only apply to Windows 10 or 11 Enterprise machines that match by Assignments. 

Finally, Review your new Intune Configuration Profile. 

Review

Checking my PowerShell Script results in Intune, I can see that it successfully applied to my test device. On that device I can now search for Teams in the start menu or in the Program and Features panel and see it is no longer installed. (Remember, just because it is uninstalled does not mean the icon is removed from the start bar, if a user clicks the icon it will reinstall the program. You must do both parts)

After the Intune Configuration profile syncs, I can see my updated start bar that no longer has the Teams Chat program present.

Sources

1: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/introducing-chat-from-microsoft-teams-on-windows-11-for-your/ba-p/2809877 

2: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/mdm/policy-csp-experience#experience-configurechaticonvisibilityonthetaskbar

Brad Wyatt

My name is Bradley Wyatt; I am a 4x Microsoft Most Valuable Professional in Cloud and Datacenter Management. I have given talks at many different conferences, user groups, and companies throughout the United States ranging from PowerShell to DevOps Security best practices and am the 2022 North American Outstanding Contribution to the Microsoft Community winner.