How to Remove Classic Microsoft Teams with PowerShell and Intune Proactive Remediations

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Microsoft officially retired Classic Teams on July 1, 2025, and the client is no longer functional. Despite this, many organizations still have remnants of Classic Teams scattered across their Windows device estate. This is not just a cosmetic issue. Classic Teams no longer receives security updates, the per-user installation model wastes disk space, leftover shortcuts confuse users, and end-of-life software can put you out of compliance. If you have been putting off the cleanup, now is the time to remove Classic Teams from your environment.

In this post I am sharing three PowerShell scripts that handle different scenarios, from a one-off standalone removal to a fully automated Intune Proactive Remediations approach.

Why You Need to Remove Classic Teams

Even though Classic Teams stopped working months ago, there are real reasons to actively remove it rather than just leaving it behind:

  • Security – Classic Teams no longer receives security updates, leaving a potential attack surface on your endpoints
  • Disk space – The per-user installation model means Classic Teams can consume hundreds of megabytes per user profile on a device
  • User confusion – Leftover shortcuts and autorun entries can confuse users, especially when New Teams is already deployed
  • Compliance – Many organizations have policies requiring the removal of end-of-life software from managed devices
  • Clean device state – Leftover registry entries and autorun configurations can interfere with New Teams or cause unexpected behavior

What Gets Removed

All three scripts target the same Classic Teams components:

  • Teams Machine-Wide Installer – The MSI-based installer typically deployed via SCCM, GPO, or during OS deployment
  • Per-user Teams installations – Classic Teams installed itself per-user under %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Teams for each profile on the device
  • Autorun registry entries – Both HKLM and per-user Run keys that launch Classic Teams at logon
  • Desktop and Start Menu shortcuts – Leftover .lnk files pointing to the old Teams client
  • Teams Installer folder – The C:\Program Files (x86)\Teams Installer directory

Option 1: Remove Classic Teams with a Standalone Script

If you need to remove Classic Teams from a smaller number of devices, or want to run the cleanup through SCCM, ConfigMgr, GPO, or manually, use the standalone removal script. It handles the complete removal process in a single run: stops Teams processes, uninstalls the Machine-Wide Installer via msiexec, iterates through all user profiles to remove per-user installations, cleans up registry entries and shortcuts, and validates the result.

Script: Remove-ClassicTeams.ps1

Usage

Run the script as SYSTEM or with local administrator privileges:

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File Remove-ClassicTeams.ps1

The script creates a log file at C:\Windows\Logs\Remove-ClassicTeams.log for troubleshooting.

Option 2: Remove Classic Teams with Intune Proactive Remediations

For organizations managing devices through Microsoft Intune, the preferred approach is to use Proactive Remediations (now called Remediations in the Intune admin center). This gives you a detection script that identifies non-compliant devices and a remediation script that automatically cleans them up.

Detection Script

The detection script checks whether you still need to remove Classic Teams by scanning all common locations. If any remnant is found, it exits with code 1 (non-compliant), which triggers the remediation script. If the device is clean, it exits with code 0 (compliant).

Script: Detect-ClassicTeams.ps1

The detection checks include:

  • Teams Machine-Wide Installer in both 32-bit and 64-bit uninstall registry keys
  • Classic Teams folder, Teams.exe, and Update.exe in each user profile
  • Teams desktop shortcuts across all profiles
  • HKLM Run entry for Teams

Remediation Script

When the detection script flags a device as non-compliant, the remediation script will remove Classic Teams and perform the full cleanup. It goes further than the standalone script by also cleaning Start Menu and Startup folder shortcuts, loading offline user registry hives to remove per-user Run entries, and removing the Teams Installer folder from Program Files.

Script: Remediate-ClassicTeams.ps1

After remediation, the script runs its own validation. If all remnants are successfully removed, it exits with code 0. If anything remains, it exits with code 1, which Intune will flag for review.

Setting Up the Proactive Remediation in Intune

  1. In the Intune admin center, navigate to Devices > Remediations
  2. Click Create script package
  3. Give it a name, for example: Remove Classic Microsoft Teams
  4. Upload Detect-ClassicTeams.ps1 as the detection script
  5. Upload Remediate-ClassicTeams.ps1 as the remediation script
  6. Set Run this script using the logged-on credentials to No (runs as SYSTEM)
  7. Set Run script in 64-bit PowerShell to Yes
  8. Assign the remediation to a device group – start with a pilot group before targeting all devices
  9. Set the schedule – daily is recommended until the bulk of devices are cleaned up, then reduce to weekly

Logging

All three scripts write detailed logs to C:\Windows\Logs:

  • Remove-ClassicTeams.log
  • Detect-ClassicTeams.log
  • Remediate-ClassicTeams.log

Each log entry includes a timestamp, severity level (INFO, WARN, ERROR), and a descriptive message, making it easy to verify that the scripts successfully remove Classic Teams. This makes it straightforward to troubleshoot any issues through Intune device diagnostics or by reviewing the log files directly.

Summary: Remove Classic Teams the Right Way

Cleaning up Classic Microsoft Teams is a necessary task for any organization that has migrated to New Teams. Whether you run the standalone script through your existing deployment tools or leverage Intune Proactive Remediations for automated, ongoing compliance, these scripts give you a reliable way to get it done.

All scripts are available on my GitHub:

If you have questions or run into issues, feel free to reach out.

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