Microsoft Teams - "Open with the desktop app" default setting has disappeared

Anonymous
2021-11-05T14:00:48+00:00

Hi,

We are currently using Microsoft Teams for team collaboration and we mainly use Microsoft Office desktop applications to open and edit our Office files. We do not use the integrated Teams editors or the web-based editors.

A couple weeks ago, the "Default behavior" option appeared in our Teams desktop applications and we were able to select "Desktop app" as the default way of opening files when double clicking a file in Teams. This is very handy for us and we recommended to all of our users to switch to this in order to open files.

But a few days ago, we discovered that this option is not available anymore in the choices presented : We now only have the "Teams" and "Browser" options, either from the general "Settings" menu or while right-clicking a file and select "Change default". The desktop app option has completely disappeared from the list. For those like me who configured Teams to open files directly from Office by default, the new default is now the Teams editor.

We tried to delete Microsoft Team's cache on one of our computers, but the option is still missing.

Is there a way to have this option back for our organization ? Is there something we need to configure in the Teams' admin center ?

Regards,

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Files | Other

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-10-04T15:59:51+00:00

    I was told by our system administrator that the option to set the default to 'open with app' is available for certain O365 license levels, E3 or E5. Here is an article I found about that.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/edit-an-office-file-in-teams-257a5e88-205a-4fb5-bbf1-c78c3e64de86#desktoporwebapp

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-10-05T12:27:10+00:00

    That is the problem.

    Microsoft originally let us have this feature with our Premium, Standard, and Basic licenses and then decided to take it away and only give it to higher tier licensing. No one is going to go from paying $20 monthly to over $50 monthly just to have this feature.

    This has caused major issues with companies that transitioned over to Microsoft Teams only to have Microsoft remove features and force us to either upgrade licensing or find work around to get there software to work as originally intended.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-06T16:16:41+00:00

    Hi there,

    we have the same issue, that's a problem, it doesn't help to have the users using MS Teams, actually I would say it discourages to use MS Teams in an effective way, MS Teams or Browser editor doesn't allow to leverage all functionalities available in the app version.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-11-12T12:41:27+00:00

    Just a greedy or mean decision.

    What really ticks me off is no announcement. When this default apps feature first rolled out, announcements everywhere. And since then there have been bumps in the road and as such there are many troubleshooting articles out there trying to get the feature or fixes to show the feature.

    Then they yank it if you are not at least E3. No announcement.

    How many admin hours are being wasted trying to troubleshoot an intentional yet unannounced removal of a feature.

    What feature is next?

    Thankfully, Microsoft is not the only show in town and as they jack up the costs of everything, alternatives are starting to look pretty good.

    Microsoft hides these moves because they know how petty it makes them look. And it shows their disdain for their own customers.

    But the light sooner or later exposes these changes. And the alternatives out there are more and more eager for new business.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-11-18T21:55:53+00:00

    Same issue - Saw discussion of having to be on E3 or E5 license, but we are on E3 license.

    My windows 10 machine - Teams desktop application has the option for open in Desktop apps by default

    My new windows 11 machine - Teams desktop application does not have the option.

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