Teams has a mute button all of its own in taskbar of latest Windows 11 preview build
- Reference: 1636052170
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/11/04/windows_11_teams/
- Source link:
This should prove very handy for when one lets loose with the expletives due to the collaboration platform behaving poorly.
The feature has turned up in [1]build 22494 and pops a microphone icon into the taskbar when the user joins a meeting, assuming one is a member of the subset of Windows Insiders lucky enough to have the feature switched on, and also have the work or school version of Microsoft Teams installed.
[2]
Other versions, such as Microsoft Teams for home, are not yet supported. The mute button will, however, eventually reach all Windows 11 users, we understand.
[3]
[4]
Microsoft said that "other communications applications can also add this capability to their applications," although rival vendors were less than impressed with the emphasis on Teams.
Element COO Amandine Le Pape told The Register : "It looks like it's more about muting the competition."
[5]Dynamics 365 facelift shows Microsoft trying to compete with the supply chain and process mining big dogs
[6]What a Mesh: Microsoft puts Office in the Loop, adds mixed reality tech to Teams
[7]Better late than never: Microsoft rolls out a public preview of E2EE in Teams calls
[8]Microsoft emits more Win 11 fixes for AMD speed issues and death by PowerShell bug
We asked Microsoft how the functionality could be extended to other platforms, but have yet to receive a response. Heaven forbid that the company might be, as Le Pape put it, "gatekeeping its technology [in] a blatant attempt to push its own platform ahead of others."
Frankly, if it's muting you're after, a variety of tools already exist to do just that, not least [9]PowerToys (also from Microsoft) which will helpfully toggle video and/or microphone input regardless of application via a single keystroke.
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Other new features in the Windows build include showing snap groups in ALT+TAB and Task View for some Insiders as well as a fix for the indexer hogging CPU and RAM when its database became too fragmented. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/11/03/announcing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-22494/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YYlXzEawgWR4RAGzAtLutgAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YYlXzEawgWR4RAGzAtLutgAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YYlXzEawgWR4RAGzAtLutgAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/04/microsoft_dynamics_ignite/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/02/microsoft_ignite/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/e2ee_teams_microsoft/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/windows_11_fixes_windows_10_/
[9] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/video-conference-mute
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YYlXzEawgWR4RAGzAtLutgAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Great....
Meetings are better when everyone is on mute.
Re: Great....
From the sound of it, this isn't another mute button that could mess things up, but instead just another control which activates the old Teams control. If that's true, it probably reduces the annoyance because they don't have to bring the Teams window back into focus to mute or unmute themselves.
Re: Great....
> From the sound of it, this isn't another mute button that could mess things up, but instead just another control which activates the old Teams control. If that's true, it probably reduces the annoyance because they don't have to bring the Teams window back into focus to mute or unmute themselves.
Nod.
As a newcomer to Teams I was recently in a meeting where my computer was being controlled by someone else via the desktop sharing feature. Having muted myself earlier in order to sneeze but not taken note of the unmute shortcut, I ended up screaming "I need control back to fix this" to nobody in particular when the keyboard's unmute key threatened to start closing application windows.
Is there a button to completely uninstall it, or will it be like IE6?
Oh you teases....
No chance of getting win 11 on my corporate laptop anytime soon (we only moved to win 10 because of win 7 support ending) and convincing the PTB to allow us to have the powertoys shortcuts is in the realms of pure fantasy.
*grump*
Re: Oh you teases....
Lucky you!
Dueling mute buttons
I already have a volume control icon in my taskbar, I can apply mute from there. I keep the system muted all the time, even when working from home. Are the controls independent? Additive? One overriding the other? I have a sneaking suspicion the Teams button will be the uber-mute, overriding any other settings in the system, but not vice versa, and the "other communications applications" buttons will be unter-mutes.
I hate teams.
It’s utter shit.
Great....
Another mute button. Because I have not - at all - heard the silence of a meeting when the person next to speak had to figure out which mute button (was it software, was it the hardware button, is it the Windows setting, did the presenter have them muted?) had them screaming into the void.