Recently, Microsoft removed a command-line-based feature called SaRA that allows users and admins to troubleshoot various issues on Windows across several Microsoft apps, including Office. The company deemed that legacy feature as no longer safe and thus deprecated it to make Windows more secure.
On a similar note with a similar motive, Microsoft has announced this week that it is retiring a Teams component too, so that it can improve the security of the app. The company has announced that Teams will retire legacy external meeting controls integration in its desktop client for Windows 11/10 and Mac soon.
For anyone not familiar, the feature enabled limited external control of actions such as leaving a meeting, muting audio, raising a hand, turning the camera on/off, blurring/unblurring the background, and sending reactions. The tech giant has confirmed that this is no longer being maintained and supported as it does not meet the company’s security and platform standards. The company understands that this could affect users who rely on hardware shortcuts or automation tools; however, the decision is aimed at improving reliability, security, and long-term maintainability, which, Microsoft says, are its primary motivations.
If you are wondering when, this change will come into effect starting June 30, 2026, which is when these capabilities will be permanently removed from the Teams desktop clients, and the corresponding setting under Settings > Privacy will no longer be available. Hence, Microsoft is giving users and admins alike more than 30 days’ notice ahead of the removal. Following this, external applications or devices that depended on this method to trigger meeting actions should stop functioning entirely. This includes previously configured third-party integrations that relied on this legacy pathway.
On the bright side, Microsoft has noted that native Teams controls within the app will continue to work as expected, as the company has emphasized that supported integration frameworks, including published APIs such as the Microsoft Graph API, will continue to function normally as they remain unaffected. Those who have access to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal can view the message here under ID MC1266901 on the company"s official site.
On the topic of Teams security, Microsoft is also making another related change. The company announced at the end of last year that it was going to automatically remove EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) from images shared in conversations and chats in order to improve privacy protection. For those who don"t know, an EXIF file in an image is a metadata file, which means it stores info about that image. The feature is currently being rolled out. You can find its entry here under 542795 on the Microsoft 365 roadmap.