Finding the Version and Location of the Teams Meeting Add-in for Outlook

Critical Piece to Connect Outlook to Teams

The article about how to make Teams meetings the default for Outlook for Windows prompted some questions about the Teams Meeting add-in. This is the component which connects to Teams to create the online space used to host a meeting and populate the meeting properties with the values necessary to let Outlook know that the meeting is online. Read this post for more details about using the add-on.

Finding the Version of the Teams Meeting Add-In

The questions that arose included:

• Where is the add-on stored?
• How do you know what version of the add-in is on a PC?

The easy answer to both questions is found by examining the Add-ins section of Outlook options and looking for the entry for Microsoft Teams Add-in for Microsoft Office (Figure 1).

Here we discover that the DLL used to load the add-in is AppData\Local\Microsoft\TeamsMeetingAddin\1.0.20339.4\x86\Microsoft.Teams.AddinLoader.dll. We now know the location and the version number of the add-in. A separate folder stores the files for the X64 version.

Teams updates the add-in when it refreshes the Teams client on Windows PCs.

The Teams Meeting Add-In and LoadBehavior

Another important influence on the Teams Meeting add-in is the registry setting which controls its load behavior. The LoadBehavior DWORD value under the TeamsAddIn.FastConnect key should be 3 for normal operation (Figure 2). According to Microsoft documentation, 3 means that the relevant application (Outlook) should load the add-in at start up, which is what we want.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, the value goes missing in action and needs to be recreated to allow Outlook to load the Teams meeting add-in. Don’t set the value to anything else unless instructed by Microsoft support.

The registry file to populate the value is:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\outlook\addins\TeamsAddin.FastConnect]
“Description”=”Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office”
“FriendlyName”=”Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office”
“LoadBehavior”=dword:00000003

Unwanted Add-Ins

Not many people probably check the add-ins loaded by Outlook (unless problems occur). The other add-ins listed in Figure 1 are:

• SharePoint Server Colleague Import: Used by the old Colleague feature implemented in SharePoint 2010. Not needed anymore.
• Exchange: If you’re using Teams, you’re using Exchange. Leave this add-in alone.
• Outlook Social Connector 2016: Used by Outlook’s People Pane (another old feature). Microsoft says that it’s not used in Outlook for Office 365, so why the add-in is loaded is unknown.
• OneNote notes about Outlook items: Used to send Outlook data to OneNote. This function must be enabled in the Advanced section of Outlook options.

In my case, the add-ins are published and installed automatically by Microsoft. Depending on how Outlook is configured in your organization, you might have other add-ins loaded, including some created by ISVs.

To disable the unwanted add-ins, select COM Add-ins in the Manage drop-down at the bottom of the Add-in options screen and click Go. Uncheck the add-ins you don’t use (Figure 3).

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Another day, another snippet of Office 365 information to share with the world. We can’t fit this kind of information in the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook because its 1,250 pages are already packed with juicy insight into how applications really work, but it’s nice to share.