Disable start Microsoft Teams automatically

After installing Microsoft Teams, Teams is set by default to automatically start when logging into Windows 10. Many people (including me) appreciate this because Teams is part of the daily work in the office. However, if you have installed Microsoft Teams to be able to do temporarily video conferencing in these times of Corona and working from home, the automatic start-up of Teams can be a nuisance. In that case, this blog article is for you. I describe all possible ways to stop Microsoft Teams from automatically starting when logging into your Windows 10 device.

Disable auto-start application from the Settings window

The easiest and most common way to disable the auto-start of Teams is as follows:

1. Open the main Teams Window
2. In Teams, left-click your profile photo and choose Settings
3. In the Settings window, untick Auto-start application
4. Close the Settings window

That’s all. No need to click Save or OK. Settings are changed directly after unticking the Auto-start application option.

Delete the registry key name and value

1. Click Start , type Registry and click Registry Editor (app)
2. Navigate to the following key:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Run
3. In Run, locate com.squirrel.Teams.Teams on the right side
4. Right-click com.squirrel.Teams.Teams and click Delete
5. If prompted to Confirm Value Delete, click Yes

Disable Microsoft Teams from the startup tab in Task Manager

1. Open the Task Manager. Either right-click the taskbar and click Task Manager, or click Start and search for Task Manager
2. Click tab Startup
3. Locate Microsoft Teams, right-click on it and choose Disable

You’ll notice the Auto-start application checkbox in Microsoft Teams settings is still enabled. Disabling Microsoft Teams from the Task Manager is not the cleanest way to do it, but still it’s very effective.

Conclusion

There are many roads that lead to Rome. I have outlined 3 ways to disable Teams auto start above, but there will be many more. For example via Powershell, or via a command in Teams.
Either way, it’s good to know that you can stop the Microsoft Teams auto-start. Because you use Teams sporadically, because Microsoft Teams decreases the performance of your PC, or simply because you want to keep control over your PC.