Lastly, Teams chat is becoming less obnoxious in Windows 11

In Windows 11, Microsoft Teams has lengthy been an app imposed on customers, reasonably than one helpfully provided to them. Ever had a dialog with a pal, solely to have a totally random particular person wander up and be part of in as in the event that they’d been invited to chat all alongside? The built-in integration of Teams chat into Windows 11’s taskbar has at all times carried that vibe—you must make some extent of expelling it, in any other case it continues to take a seat awkwardly amongst your different shortcut icons. But in the newest Windows Insider Dev preview construct, it appears to be like like Microsoft is lastly acknowledging how undesirable Teams chat has been.

As introduced in a current Windows Insider Blog publish (and surfaced by Windows Central), a pinned shortcut to Teams will substitute the chat flyout, beginning with construct 23481. The swap ought to make eradicating the app out of your taskbar a lot simpler—like all taskbar shortcuts, you’ll solely have to right-click on it after which select Unpin. Previously, nuking the chat integration might solely be carried out by wading via your taskbar settings, which took a number of extra steps. The change additionally eliminates the inconvenience of getting to make this swap manually, as customers who use Teams’ assembly function greater than chat have needed to do. (Though possibly simply allow us to determine so as to add the shortcut or not throughout setup, Microsoft?)

Other updates are rolling out with this new Insider construct as nicely, which additionally will possible change into options accessible for most people later this yr. They embody embody Windows Ink enhancements, a brand new Focus Session widget, and the elimination of some folder possibility settings in File Explorer. Long-time Windows customers could need to take a look at these folder possibility tweaks in specific, as Microsoft describes them because the removing of “legacy settings” which have “been around for ages [and] not being regularly used by people on Windows 11.” Insider builds consider consumer suggestions, so you probably have a spare PC, you might need to check out the construct and weigh in along with your opinion now—earlier than any remaining choices are set in stone.

Especially since we’ve seen how issues can shake out for us “legacy users” in Windows 11. 

Author: Alaina Yee, Senior Editor