The message emphasizes the importance of keeping Microsoft Teams desktop clients updated for security and compliance. Teams updates automatically, but admins should ensure this feature is properly configured. Starting November 12th, 2024, outdated clients will receive notifications, and by December 4th, 2024, a blocking page will appear for versions older than 90 days. Admins need to prepare by updating Teams and verifying configurations.
In today’s security climate, our work across the company and greater industry to keep this critical ecosystem secure is more important than ever. And while we also ship bug fixes and other new features via continuous innovation, in the end security is job one.
Keeping Microsoft Teams up to date is critical to ensure your devices are secure and compliant. By default, and as designed, Teams updates automatically which successfully updates most clients in the world without additional overhead for customers.
Microsoft Teams is governed by the Modern Lifecycle Policy which requires that the Teams desktop client be kept up to date. This is not a new policy, for instance in MC298823 (November 2021), a version that is far out of date will become incompatible with the service until it’s updated. As documented, when a client falls out of date, the user will see:
As an example, if the Teams app is hypothetically on a version released on January 1 and the next update is fully available on January 15, an in-app alert would be shown on February 14th (30 days after the January 15th update).
For reference, link to the Teams app's version's release dates. Also, The Microsoft Teams desktop client usage report gives you an overview of the Teams desktop clients in use within your organization.
Classic Teams is not in scope for this post; see MC783985 for Classic Teams Timelines regarding end of support and end of availability.
When this will happen:
The existing policy enforcement will be visible beginning November 12th, 2024.
How this will affect your organization:
New Teams - Windows & Mac Versions desktop clients (not running in a VDI environment)
New Teams app running in a VDI environment – Windows desktop clients will follow the same policies as non-VDI environments, with enforcement starting on dates below
Note: The enforcement policies on preview rings may start mid-November. The 30d out of date in app messaging and 90d out of date blocking dates still apply (for versions released to that ring)
What you can do to prepare:
To avoid disruption to end-users, the admins with users on Teams versions older than the currently released versions, should update their users to the most recent version.
Admins should make sure Teams is automatically updating to stay current and within the compatibility window. Common configurations to validate include:
Please visit this page to learn more.