Microsoft Teams VDI Optimization for VMware Horizon – The Tech Journal

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Browse All Community Hubs. Turn on suggestions. Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. Showing results for. Show only Search instead for. Did you mean:. Sign In. New Contributor. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI is virtualization technology that hosts a desktop operating system and applications on a centralized server in a data center.

This enables a complete, and personalized, desktop experience for users with a fully secured and compliant centralized source. Teams in a virtualized environment supports chat and collaboration. And 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.

Features are in continuous development and are added on a regular basis, and functionality will expand over time. Using Teams in a virtualized environment might be somewhat different from using Teams in a non-virtualized environment.

For example, some advanced features might not be available in a virtualized environment, and video resolution might differ. The Teams desktop app was validated with leading virtualization solution providers. With multiple market providers, we recommend that you consult your virtualization solution provider to ensure that you meet the minimum requirements. Review the information in this section to ensure that you meet all requirements for proper functionality. You can download the latest version of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops at the Citrix downloads site.

You’ll need to sign in first. For the latest server and client requirements, see the Optimization for Microsoft Teams article on the Citrix website. VMware Horizon is a modern platform for secure delivery of virtual desktops and apps across the hybrid cloud. To offer a great end-user experience, VMware Horizon provides media optimization for Teams. This optimization improves overall productivity across virtual desktops and apps, and enhances user experience when calling and meeting using Teams.

The required media optimization components are part of the Horizon Agent and Horizon Client by default and there’s no need to install any additional plug-in to use the optimization feature for Teams.

To get the latest requirements and instructions on how to configure media optimization for Teams, see the Configuring Media Optimization for Microsoft Teams article on the VMware website.

Deciding on which approach to use depends on whether you use a persistent or non-persistent setup and the associated functionality needs of your organization. For a dedicated persistent setup, both per-machine and per-user installation will work. However, for a non-persistent setup, Teams requires a per-machine installation in order to work efficiently. See the Non-persistent setup section.

With per-machine installation, automatic updates are disabled. This means that to update the Teams app, you must uninstall the current version to update to a newer version. With per-user installation, automatic updates are enabled. Keep the Teams desktop app in your VDI environment up to date. Teams desktop app versions with release dates that are more than 90 days older than the current version’s release date aren’t supported.

Unsupported Teams desktop app versions show a blocking page to users and request that they update their app. For most VDI deployments, we recommend you deploy Teams using per-machine installation. For a complete list of features supported on each platform, see the product documentation topic for the version of Horizon that you are using.

Note : For Horizon documentation references, we will be using Horizon 8 product documentation links throughout this guide. X and later. Microsoft also turned on the service on their side on August 11, To take advantage of the offload capability, you must use Horizon Client for Windows or later, Horizon Client for Mac or later, or Horizon Client for Linux or later.

The Media Optimization for Microsoft Teams group policy setting must be enabled in the virtual desktop. Web browser media offload is supported with the Browser Redirection feature. See Configuring Browser Redirection for support details.

This section briefly lists the system requirements for both the client and the virtual desktop when using the Media Optimization for Microsoft Teams feature. Client system for OSes supported with a specific release, see the appropriate Horizon Client release notes. You can see the setting if you select Customize installation in the installer. Double-click the.

If you are using the installation wizard, you can see that the Media Optimization for Microsoft Teams option is selected, as shown below. Media Optimization for Microsoft Teams is also installed by default in the Horizon Agent, but it is controlled with a GPO, which is not enabled by default.

After setting this policy, you must log out of the Horizon desktop for the GPO policy to take effect. Horizon Agent must be installed before Microsoft Teams. If the order is reversed, then on first run, Microsoft Teams does not detect Horizon Agent and caches an environment value that indicates the feature is running on an unsupported remote desktop.

This results in Microsoft Teams never supporting the Media Optimization feature unless the cache is deleted.

To avoid this issue, be sure to install Horizon Agent before you install Microsoft Teams. Then, on first run, Microsoft Teams detects Horizon Agent and caches the correct environment value, which verifies that the feature is running on a supported remote desktop.

As described in the overview of this guide, there are significant advantages to running Microsoft Teams in optimized mode. However, as you are planning your implementation, keep in mind that end users who are not running supported Horizon Client versions Horizon Client or later for Windows, Horizon Client or later for Mac, or Horizon Client or later for Linux will not be able to take advantage of this feature. They will not, however, go back to running the full client in the virtual desktop because the GPO has set Microsoft Teams to offload audio and video to the client.

Those users will instead run in fallback mode. A user can check if Microsoft Teams is running in optimized mode, fallback mode, or natively no optimization in the virtual desktop. Audio and video quality may be reduced. Talk to your IT admin. If you enable the optimization GPO in the virtual desktop, these clients, although not officially supported, will begin implementing offload.

The bugs we found in these clients during beta testing are fixed in Horizon Client for Windows version or later for Horizon 8 or Horizon Client for Windows 5. VMware strongly recommends using the officially supported versions. For beta testing, VMware published the Horizon Client beta installer for Mac via the beta portal that supports optimization.

VMware recommends that you use the officially supported version, Horizon Client or later for Mac, to get the latest functionality and bug fixes for the Mac client. Similarly, VMware published a beta version of Horizon Client for Linux that supports optimization via the beta portal. VMware recommends using the officially supported version, Horizon Client or later for Linux, to get the latest functionality and bug fixes for the Linux client.

Thank you for the post. Great article. Is the optimization wiring for the ChromeOS client as well? Nevertheless I can share my screen and others can see it. If I turn off teams optimisation everything works fine. This might be why when you disable it, everything works fine. Can you also post Dynamic Environment manager configuration that goes with this installation. Your Comment. Name required. E-mail required.

 
 

 

Teams for Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs – Background

 
Note : The usual Horizon ports are also required, as detailed in the following documents:. All users can then uninstall Teams if they have admin credentials. Microsoft Viva.