Just got this right before midnight in my MS Admin app alerts. If you dont configure the policy, in September it defaults to opening web links in Edge regardless of OS default browser setting.
I woke up this morning to One Drive doing its usual thing being HOT GARBAGE, now I’m going to bed with Teams becoming HOT GARBAGE.
Full Excerpt:
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Web links from Microsoft Teams chats to open in Microsoft Edge; Teams chat will open side-by-side with link
MC669480
Plan for change
Published date: August 21, 2023
Affected services
Microsoft Teams
Tag
MAJOR UPDATEADMIN IMPACTNEW FEATUREUSER IMPACT
The Microsoft Teams desktop app for Windows will open web links from Teams chats in Microsoft Edge to enable a new web and chat side-by-side experience.
By opening web links in Edge, users will be able to see those links side-by-side with their Teams chats—web links will open as new browser tabs and the Teams chats will open next to them in the Edge sidebar. This new, single-view Teams experience in Edge is designed to minimize switching between windows and to help users stay in the flow of work while referencing web links.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 126334.
This change to use Edge to open web links from Teams chats follows a similar, previously announced change in the Outlook for Windows app. Customers impacted by this change in Outlook were notified via MC541626, MC545904, or MC548092.
Admin controls are available as detailed below.
Read more about how we’re optimizing the experience between Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Edge:
What’s New in Teams | Microsoft Inspire 2023 Notes:
This change does not affect a device’s default browser setting in Windows.
This only affects commercial users signed into Teams with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) accounts.
The policy described in the following section configures which browser is used to open web links for both Teams (chat) and the Outlook for Windows app (email), or, if you did not receive an Outlook for Windows app Message center notification, this policy will only apply to Teams (chat).
When will this affect your organization:
Timing:
Microsoft Teams desktop app for Windows: This change will start rolling out late September.
Outlook for Windows: Roll out in progress. If this change affects your users, you will have received either MC541626, MC545904, or MC548092, and can refer to them for specific timing.
Note: Depending on your Outlook for Windows update channel, you may experience the change in Teams first. Action:
Use the Choose which browser opens web links policy to configure which browser will be used to open web links and to set whether users will be able to make changes to which browser opens web links in both the Teams desktop app for Windows (chat) and the Outlook for Windows app (email).
If you did not receive a message center notification for the Outlook for Windows app (email), then the setting only applies to Teams (chat).
If you did receive a message center notification for the Outlook for Windows app (email), then the setting applies to both Teams (chat) and Outlook for Windows app (email). You will not be able to manage each app individually using this policy. If you’ve previously configured this policy for the Outlook for Windows app and wish to maintain that configuration, no action is required.
Note: There are no Microsoft 365 subscription restrictions in using this policy to configure which browser opens web links in Teams.
Use of the policy to manage the change in the Outlook for Windows app depends on your Microsoft 365 subscription. If you received the Outlook for Windows app Message center notification, please refer to MC541626, MC545904, or MC548092 for details on whether configuring this policy will apply.
If you have not configured the policy, or wish to change it, find the details below. How this will affect your organization:
Links from Teams chats will open based on the browser configuration in the Choose which browser opens web links policy. If no configuration is selected using the Choose which browser opens web links policy, web links from Teams chats will open in Microsoft Edge.
Only links set to open via a web browser are affected. Links that are set to open in a client app or within Teams itself will continue to do so. User experiences will vary by policy configuration; please see the next section.
You can manage this experience at any time. What you need to do to prepare:
If you’ve previously configured this policy for the Outlook for Windows app and wish to maintain that configuration, no action is required.
Use the Choose which browser opens web links policy to configure which default browser will be used to open web links and to set whether users will be able to manage which browser opens web links in both Teams (chat) and the Outlook for Windows app (email). You will not be able to manage each app individually using this policy.
The Choose which browser opens web links policy is available using the Cloud Policy service for Microsoft 365 (formerly the Office Cloud Policy Service) or as part of the Administrative Templates for Microsoft 365 Apps.
Enabled: Configures which browser opens web links from the Teams desktop app for Windows (chat) and the Outlook for Windows app (email):
Microsoft Edge
Web links will open side-by-side with users’ chat or email in Edge.
Default browser
Users will not be able to change this from the respective apps’ settings menus.
Disabled/Unconfigured: Web links from the Teams desktop app for Windows (chat) and the Outlook for Windows app (email) will open in Microsoft Edge.
Web links will open side-by-side with users’ chat or email in Edge.
Users can manage the browser change: Via the in-product notifications explaining the side-by-side experience.
At any time via the Teams settings menu: Settings > Files and links > Link open preferences
Note: If you want to manage this change for your entire organization so that Teams only opens web links using the device’s system default browser, you will need to configure the policy to Enabled and select Default browser.
Additional Information
Read more about how we’re optimizing the experience between Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Edge with this feature in our blog: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/02/16/discover-new-ways-to-multitask-with-microsoft-365-and-edge/
We always value feedback and questions from our customers. Please feel free to submit either feedback or questions via Message Center.
This shit makes me want to quit IT. Technology is no longer helping humans. Technology is controlled by capitalist cunts.
I’m with you. I’m so completely and utterly over working in IT. The industry used to be full of companies founded by people who loved tech, and were staffed by kids who grew up on Lego and Logo. Today these same businesses are owned by investors who don’t know the first thing about technology, and staffed by grown up kids who were told by their guidance counselor that IT was a high paying field. Nobody knows their ass from a hole in the ground anymore, and getting anyone remotely competent on the phone is like pulling teeth. If I could bail on this industry tomorrow and build picnic tables I’d never look back.
Same. Streaming services reinvented cable. The open web is increasingly hidden behind paywalls. Instead of having the sum of all human knowledge at your fingertips, you have 5 billion tiny creators begging you to sign up for their goat-fat candle-making course on udacity. You can’t look in any direction without advertisers stabbing you in the eyes and claiming that it’s their god-given right to scream their snake-oil sales pitch directly into your brain; and if you install an ad blocker you’re the one stealing food out of content creators mouths, not the ~5 people who control 50 % of the total wealth of humanity…
I’m out of software the first chance I get. I hate it. Tech is no longer fun and inventive, it’s exploitative and designed to milk the most money out of every user.
I don’t even particularly care about the capitalist part. I just find that the new things are no longer fun, but terrifying and causing anxiety about the future. I used to love keeping up with the newest stuff, but I already feel like a Luddite after the last few years
I joined an IT career out of excitement for technology and gaming, but most that I see about both those industries makes me lose hope for the future.
I did. I switched to social work and am starting my 2nd year in grad school. It’s not just you, my dude.
I’ve feel a deep resentment when asked to work on anything Windows related!
Don’t quit IT. Combine your abilities with other IT people and make new things that create competition.
A browser so good they have to force their captive audience to use it.
It’s like the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft 22 years ago. They are still trying to push their browser.
It’s not the same as 22 years ago. What is the difference? Well, Microsoft tricks you into making Edge your default browser with every bigger update.
Windows 10: “oh uuuuh (sweats profusely) hi user-senpai. I made this cute browser, it’s called edge and you would make me so happy if you used it.”
Me: (looks for “No” button", sighs and then clicks “Later” button on the bottom left)
Windows 10: “oh noooo (sobs uncontrollably) can you at least import your bookmarks and stuff into edge”
Me: (clicks whatever button because that window too lacks a clear “No” button)
Windows 10: “Yaaaay! Thank you user-senpaaaaai! I promise that one day you’ll have yes to Edge! I will make it the greatest browser ever!”
I’m in the process to migrate to Void Linux because of this and other issues.
EDIT: I got 3 downvotes so far and i want to say… i see you. I got the hint. The text lacks a Yandere vibe that Microsoft has going on 😄.
Remind me - I have a nice ZFS Encrypted Void install guide. In hospital at the moment, I’ll try dig it up.
The thing is, it’s actually decent. I don’t know why they have to keep doing this. I used Edge as the main browser on my Surface Go to get a bit more battery life, and it’s fine as my second browser; feels like someone is desperately trying to meet their KPIs to keep on pulling shit like this. Parts of the browser are getting worse too, that sidebar is a complete mess at default.
You are probably right, but the more they keeping pushing me to use Edge, the more I don’t want to use it. My experience of it is mostly negative, as a hindrance that gets in my way with its constant nagging, and having to disable it.
Personally, I don’t care how good it is, I refuse to use a Chromium-based browser and insist on supporting its only serious competitor: Firefox.
This is pretty much me. I’ve never spent any significant amount of time with edge. I don’t really see the point in trying multiple chromium-based browsers.
The average person understandably doesn’t care about which rendering engine is being used behind the scene. They see the branding, the UI, and the features.
Hense Chromium’s near total dominance outside of the Mac world.
It used to be good, before it became the default platform for their AIbing monstrosity… Now it’s just arse. Why would I want web pages read to me??
Albing? But that sidebar really is a monstrosity at default, gotta disable like half of the items there to make it useful, and hide it on launch so it’s not obnoxious.
I was going to write bAIing but it made no sense. BingAI is probably a lot more coherent, in hindsight
theres some sites that dont work with how i have my browser setup in chrome, at least i think thats what is the problem, but they work fine in edge. im not gonna use it for my main browser, microsoft already gets too much data from us all, but ill use it when chrome messes up.
I wish the new popular browser wasn’t Mac only
It’s way better than Chrome for a Chromium browser.
Didn’t this very same issue result in MS being called a monopoly all those years ago. And now they are right back at it again.
they were the last major anti-trust case, and apple, facebook, google, amazon have all taught microsoft its safe to get back in the deep end.
Except they are too late as always, because authorities noticed they were too lax and tarted to crack down on big tech again.
no, biden selected an actually decent anti-trust lawyer to head up the fcc. for all people hate on him, the president’s main power is in the institutions not the man, and biden selected some bad people and some good for institutions.
this message was stolen, wholesale, from https://pluralistic.net/
if you are into this stuff I’d suggest a read (even if you disagree). this is the guy who made the term ‘enshittification’ which has become (perhaps wrongly) popular during the txixxer meltdown.
Microsoft got screwed by antitrust officials for only putting it’s browsers in new windows installs 20 years ago. Antitrust enforcement is a fucking joke in this country now.
Ironically, the larger market share of macOS (compared to back then), mobile platforms, and the fact that Chrome is now the #1 browser means there’s a much weaker case for there being a monopoly now.
“Got screwed” is an over-exaggeration. They lost. Eventually. Only after having crushed Netscape’s hopes and dreams. And the settlement was pitiful.
IE was still king after the antitrust lawsuit. It took decades to de-throne it.
Which country are we talking?
Didn’t Microsoft lose a large anti trust court case about this shit for internet explorer? So we’re just going the same route again because fuck the law and fuck our customers?
In any case, I am forced to use teams and since I run Linux I use it in chrome as the teams executable is just non workable.
Besides that, who in their right mond used teams? It’s a bit of a rhetorical question, my org uses it (for the moment, still) and it is godawful.
Teams on browsers is a fucking joke. Want gasp two tabs open with chats? Oh nononononon, Can’t have that! We’ll helpfully display an all page hiding modal asking you “are you still here?” on one of these tabs (almost always, but in typical Microsoft fashion, not always always) and if you click “I’m back” we’ll helpfully reload that page. Since many pages don’t have their unique URL, as they should because that is how the internet works, the reload just kicks you out of what you were doing… Were you in an important meeting? Well now you’re not anymore with mo way to get back unless maybe your boss tries to add you back himself.
Camera randomly just disappears, when you go into a preplanned call sometimes half the people end up in different chats, ahw whatever. I have a long, LONG list of other bugs and not enough energy to write it all down again
People should NOT use teams and should NOT use any Microsoft software, it’s all shit. I use Linux for servers and its all fast and easy. i use Linux for desktop and I never have to deal with any of the Microsoft shit
They lost something similar. But the US is different now. We don’t hold companies accountable anymore. Look at the food industry, look at Facebook, Google, etc.
EU just might though.
Hopefully
Didn’t Microsoft lose a large anti trust court case about this shit for internet explorer?
Yes and no.
MS made Internet explorer uninstallable and made it even if you could install Netscape you couldn’t set it as the default app. Forcing teams to open
internet exploreredge is more in line with iPhones and Android. Both phone OSs will let you install different browsers, but opening links from most 1st party apps opens safari or chrome with no real way to change it. It’s one of the worst things about phones and now MS is trying to move Windows that direction.It’s going to get worse. Once corporations start to adopt edge MS will move to make browser office the only office. Clicking a .doc in edge will redirect to browser word 365. Saving already defaults to the cloud, soon we’ll have “virtual downloads” that save your download to your cloud and you can only meaningfully interact with it via edge.
We need more legislation and regulations allowing software choice for all platforms. We’ve never been allowed to own software, now we can’t even buy a perpetual license. Soon we won’t be allowed to have a copy of software saved on our devices, and files made by that software won’t be allowed on our computers either.
Do you know what’s funny though?
My company for the moment still uses teams. I’ll get that fixed soon. But while using teams, teams runs in chrome on my Linux box. That still works because good luck fucking around with that in Linux Ms… So this is not a technical requirement, it’s a corporate and marketing requirement.
Fuck Microsoft, switch to Linux
Fuck Microsoft, switch to Linux
Absolutely. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on companies actually stopping use of MS.
We’ll see
Did you try to use the Progressive Web App (PWA) version of Teams instead? It is not perfect either, but I find it more useful that way than running it somewhere in a browser’s tab.
Tried the Linux app. It’s about as stable as a methhead junkie and it was simply unusable. The browser version is damn near unusable as well but at least I manage to sometimes use it, sometimes answer a call etc… it’s hilariously bad but at least it starts.
Seriously Microsoft, what is it with MS web pages not understanding that people might shudder open up two tabs? I open a second tab for teams and all hell breaks lose.
This is something indonwith all types of web pages without problem. Only Mickeysoft teams fucks it up just like all web pages on Microsoft.
For the last X number of years, I’ve listened to people proclaim how Microsoft has changed, they’re not the '90s Microsoft anymore. They make things open source! They’re putting Linux in Windows now instead of trying to murder Linux! They’re not doing Internet Explorer things anymore! You old Slashdot readers are stuck in the past!
'90s Microsoft sends their regards.
Just consider that by using Ubuntu inside Windows, they’re trying to make you not install Linux on hardware itself.
and?
And it’s a lot easier to collect telemetry and serve ads when your operating system is actually being used.
Embrace, extend. What’s the next one? Oh yeah, extinguish.
agreed, i think we all hope they extinguish teams
In case of Google: keep it.
Google would discontinue it
will open web links from Teams chats in Microsoft Edge to enable a new web and chat side-by-side experience.
I am so sick and tired of this fluffy language every tech company uses these days. “New experience” this, “New experience” that, the only new experience I want is the experience of kicking a shoe up Nadella’s ass.
I used Edge during beta and upon release. It’s a decent browser. But Microsoft started adding their bloat to it and now just throws it in my face every chance they get. I no longer use Edge as a result.
Fuck Teams. It’s the shittiest experience out of all the options. Discord is better, that’s how bad it is.
Be glad you didn’t use Skyoe for business. One of the shiitest experiences of my career. Comparitively teams is a godsend.
They’re the same thing more or less. “Skype for Business” was really just a renaming of Microsoft Lync which was just the on prem version of MS Teams. With the launch of Office 365 they axed MS Lync in favor of a SaaS version which is what MS Teams is. Ultimately all of Microsofts IM clients suck, even the ones they buy like how they screwed up Skype after buying it. Two things you never use from Microsoft, their web browsers, and their chat services.
Every iteration of Microsoft IM clients has gotten so close to being usable to have some executive mess it up with bloat and then abandon it for something new that is missing even basic features and start the cycle all over again.
Whats your favorite alternative?
Element
I don’t have Microsoft edge on my Linux system. :)
Teams on Linux is already broken af, we won’t even notice we can’t open links
I believe I read somewhere that they have abandoned the desktop app on Linux. Yep:
!In September 2022, Microsoft announced that they’d be retiring their Linux Teams client in December 2022 in favour of a new “Progressive Web Application” (PWA) version of Teams.!<
Their destop app was a browser displaying one website anyway.
just use the browser?
Same on Windows in my experience 😁
No I’m OK with it, whatever. It’s worth it big time to not run windows. :)
What if I tell you, that Teams has edge integrated, since it is basically a browser with custom UI
As long as the web client works, I’ll use teams from inside Firefox thank you very much.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to make or answer calls in Teams on Firefox. It only works for booked meetings. So for work stuff, I’ve got to use Edge even on my own home desktop. Honestly, I like it more than I did Chrome, but if I get to choose, it’s Firefox all the way.
Wait, Teams opened in Edge lets you make and answer calls? What if you change your User Agent String in Firefox to Edge (as I do for using Bing Chat)?
For Bing, I have a container (using Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension) and I have the User Agent of that container set to Microsoft Edge (using User Agent Switcher extension). Bing thinks I’m on Edge and lets me do everything there my browser is, supposedly, incapable of doing, like typing to an AI model.
I don’t use teams, someone who does please test this.
Yep it’s a terribly engineered pile of shit built on random scraps of other stuff. That’s why it has problems all the time.
I use Teams on my Mac and never seen such a poorly developed App. Everything made by Microsoft feels like trash. Fuck them.
Everything made by Microsoft feels like trash.
Hey, you take that back! Windows XP was great!
I would argue that VSCode is the big exception.
Potentially the only Electron app that doesn’t make me wanna scream.
Obsidian is also in the “built with Electron, and doesn’t make me want to scream” bucket for me.
Do we have a list?
Are you saying Teams on your Mac just “doesn’t work”?
Works like trash
For me, Teams works much better on mac than on Windows. And luckily I have no Edge on my mac.
They released an update some months ago that improved it a bit, since took them quite a while to release a decent support do Apple Silicon chips and so APP was being ran by Rosetta for what I’ve understood. Still, even after it, I think Teams is trash and no company should rely on this.
At my org, edge for all outlook links rolled out last week. Not only does it not let you use your default browser, half of the screen is taken up with a popup asking to make edge your default every time!
This feels like a serious abuse of market position. This should definitely result in legal action
another wet noodle over the wrist is sure change their behaviour
I’m in tech support, I’ve had several users hit by this in office programs as opening links via plugins to sites they need to be logged into would suddenly open a different browser which they weren’t logged into. None of them realized what was going on. That alone should cause for a lawsuit, since they’re changing defaults for reasons entirely unrelated to eg. preventing security risks.
Everyone hates this new feature at work. Now we have to close the extra side-chat bar in edge every time we click a link in Teams. This kind of feature will drive people to share links using any other program.
I swear… MS program managers are some kind of alien that don’t understand user experience at all
This can be set in Apps Admin Center by your Org Admins.
Good luck trying to open it on Edge when it’s blocked from installing via policy
I would be so frustrated working for a company like Microsoft when forced to write software “features” like this.
The business of M$ just fucking sucks
how much more IT guys want to be abused before switching to linux in companies, it’s not like they use something windows exclusive, only if it’s the insecurities
Just as soon as Linux sales people wine and dine the CTO better than the Microsoft ones. Usually it’s not IT people. If it was up to IT in my experience, Jan from Accounting would be using a tiling VM on Linux.
if the jan com accounting is using only the browser or a standalone app to do the work, the OS do’nt matter, except if it is to intall other things, but it’s the company computer why are they intalling other things
The BankID-app in Sweden only supports Windows and Mac, so if you need the improved security with cable you are locked.
