The Different Microsoft Teams Software Clients Explained

While of course your Microsoft Teams Phone System can have physical Phones, Conference Phones and full room systems (see our guides on Phones and User Devices and Microsoft Teams Rooms Systems), it is likely that the majority of your users will use software clients. This guide helps you understand the various software clients and their considerations.

In all cases there are no additional Microsoft license charges for software clients. By default all the clients will auto update from the internet or relevant app stores. Feature availability, where controlled by an admin, is handled with user policies within Microsoft Teams.

This guide covers:

 

Microsoft Teams on Windows and Mac Desktop

By far the most common use case, there are full clients for both Windows and Mac. Broadly they are similar in functionality but there may be some slight differences. Often a feature will come first to Windows and slightly later to Mac.

At time of writing the desktop clients are in a transition from the “original/classic” client, called T1 and the new rebuilt clients, T2.1. The client has been rebuilt for better performance. There are some feature differences between T1 and T2.1, but Microsoft’s objective is to have feature parity.

You can let your users choose which suits them best with a toggle to switch between the clients or you can control it as an administrator.

IT can choose their preferred method to distribute the installation, for example Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (Windows) or Jamf Pro (macOS).

The desktop clients offer the fullest Microsoft Teams experience.

Hardware Requirements for Teams on a Windows PC

  • Minimum 1.1 GHz or faster, two core
  • 0 GB RAM
  • 0 GB of available disk space
  • 1024 x 768 screen resolution
  • Windows 11, Windows 10 (excluding Windows 10 LTSC for Teams desktop app), Windows 10 on ARM, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2.

8GB RAM and a faster modern CPU will give a much better user experience.

Mobile – iOS and Android

Of course there are mobile clients, covering Apple iPhone and iPad and Android. These can be downloaded from the relevant app store. Distribution of the mobile apps via MDM or side-loading isn't supported by Microsoft. For China, the apps can be downloaded from the following app stores:

Xiaomi https://aka.ms/TeamsXiaomi

Huawei https://aka.ms/TeamsHuawei

Oppo Search for "Teams" in the Oppo store

Baidu https://aka.ms/teams_baidu_direct_dl

On Android, support is limited to the last four major versions of Android. The two most recent major versions of iOS are supported.

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Microsoft Teams in the Browser

While not recommended as a users primary client, Microsoft Teams is fully functional in the browser, though you might not get all the latest features that the desktop client has, for example it does not support giving control to the remote party.

The browser client supports Calling and Meetings by using webRTC; so there's no plug-in or download required to run Teams in a browser. The browser must be configured to allow third-party cookies.

It is supported on

  • Microsoft Edge
  • Google Chrome
  • Apple Safari
  • Firefox

The latest versions of these browsers are recommended and older versions will eventually not be supported. Note the computer running the browser must still meet the minimum hardware requirements.

Linux and ChromeOS

Linux and ChromeOS do not have dedicated clients. It is recommended to use the Browser client. The browser client can be “installed” as a Progressive Web App. This gives the appearance of an installed app with a dedicated icon, but really is just running the browser app without the address bar and other browser chrome.

 

Microsoft Teams on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

A niche use case, but fully supported. Microsoft Teams. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is virtualization technology that hosts a desktop operating system and applications on a centralized server in a data center.

Teams in a virtualized environment supports chat and collaboration on all platforms. With the Azure Virtual Desktop, Citrix, and VMware platforms, calling and meeting functionality is also supported.

Teams also supports multiple configurations in virtual environments. These include VDI, dedicated, shared, persistent, and non-persistent modes.

It is worth noting that some functionality is limited in a virtual desktop environment, where possible it is best to install Microsoft Teams on a full PC for maximum feature and minimal complexity.

Need help with your Microsoft teams client choices or deployment? Be sure to get in touch with our team who can advise you based on experience from many Microsoft Teams global deployments.

Reference: Get clients for Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn