How to Use Microsoft Teams Chat On Windows 11

How to Use Microsoft Teams Chat On Windows 11

Windows 11 is now available through a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs and new PCs pre-installed with Windows 11 worldwide. This new OS from Microsoft is packed with new features to support hybrid work, collaboration, and productivity. Windows 11 redesigns the Taskbar icons and Start menu and brings a new Microsoft Teams experience for users, including Teams Chat.

The Chat feature on Microsoft Teams will help users streamline and separate their personal and professional chats – something that is getting blurred due to the pandemic that has forced everyone to adjust to the work-from-home culture.

What’s Microsoft Teams Chat?

Windows 11 users can now start using Microsoft Teams Chat – one of the new features of Windows 11. The Chat feature will allow users to quickly start a video call or chat with family and friends on Microsoft Teams. For ease of use, Microsoft Teams Chat will be pinned to the Taskbar at Windows 11 startup and will be available only for individuals using personal Microsoft accounts.

In Windows 11, there are two separate apps: Microsoft Teams for Personal Use (that Chat uses), which comes pre-installed, and Microsoft Teams for Work and School, which you have to download. You can differentiate between the two apps using their icons. The icon for Microsoft Teams for Personal Use has a white tile under the letter T, whereas Teams for Work or School has a blue tile under the letter T.

If you previously used one Teams app for both personal and work or school accounts on Windows 11, you’ll now have a dedicated app for each experience. And if you try to log into Chat with your work or school account, you will be redirected to download Teams for work or school. You can continue to use Teams for work or school after upgrading to Windows 11 – your settings for your work or school app will stay in place.

How is Chat or Teams for Personal Use Different from Teams for Work

Microsoft Teams was made to be a Workstream Collaboration app, not just a video conferencing app. As such, it has scores of features made solely to make collaboration easier. From channels to apps, there are a lot of features in Microsoft Teams engineered especially to foster collaboration even when working remotely.

But for someone looking to use Microsoft Teams for Personal Use, that’s a lot of clutter, which complicates things. Teams Personal is a toned-down version of Microsoft Teams with only features for chat, video and audio calls, scheduling meetings, and mild collaboration. Chat is a lite version of Microsoft Teams Personal that brings features like chat(text), audio and video calling, and instant meetings to your taskbar.

With Teams Chat on Windows 11, you get immersive meeting experiences with Together Mode and the ability to send live emoji reactions, make plans with the ability to include polls and assign tasks directly in your chats, calendar integration and the ability to schedule and share meetings, rich views for files and photos shared with a chat, search over chat history, and more.

How to Launch Teams Chat in Windows 11

To use Microsoft Teams for Personal use, you can use the new Chat integration of Windows 11 or use it directly from the Personal Teams app. You can either click the Teams Chat icon in the taskbar or use the Win+C shortcut to launch Teams Chat. Chat will open in a flyout window instead of a full-fledged app window. The main purpose of the Chat flyout window is to provide easy and quick access to communicate with others, which Microsoft has been trying to offer for some time now.

Click the ‘Get Started’ button to set up Chats for your Personal Microsoft account. If you’re logged into your PC with a Microsoft account, you won’t need to log in; just click on the account to continue. If you’d like to use a different account, click the ‘use another account’ option and enter the login details on the next screen. Then, choose your display name for Chat.

If you’ve used Skype or Outlook for personal communications with your Microsoft Account in the past, you’ll have the option to sync those contacts to start using them from day one. You can also sync contacts from your mobile device by installing the Teams mobile app and turning on contact sync, saving you time. To finish setup, click on the ‘Let’s Go’ button. Once you have set up Chat, you can use it in the future without ever having to sign in again until you manually log out.

Using Teams Chat in Windows 11

When you launch Teams Chat, you’ll see a brief list of your most recent chats, and clicking on each, naturally, will open up the chat itself. If you’ve never used Microsoft Teams Personal or Chat before, there won’t be any recent chats yet – you’ll only have synced contacts. If you want to initiate a new chat with a new contact, you can proceed in several ways. If the contact is already known to you, you’ll be able to click the contact name. But if the contact you wish to chat with is entirely new, you can add contacts via their email address or phone number. Send a message to their email address or phone number, and if they’re not already using Teams, they’ll receive your message via email or SMS along with an invitation to join the Teams network if they wish.

When others contact you, you’ll receive native notifications and even respond directly inline to text chats. You can accept or decline calls directly from the notifications and decide whether you want to pick them up as audio-only or with video, too. Notifications will respect the Windows 11 focus assist settings, putting you in control. You can also invite others to a group chat or video call. Just copy the link and send it or share via email, no matter if they have Teams installed – they can click the link to join.

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Windows 11 is now available through a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs and new PCs pre-installed with Windows 11 worldwide. This new OS from Microsoft is packed with new features to support hybrid work, collaboration, and productivity. Windows 11 redesigns the Taskbar icons and Start menu and brings a new Microsoft Teams experience for users, including Teams Chat.

The Chat feature on Microsoft Teams will help users streamline and separate their personal and professional chats – something that is getting blurred due to the pandemic that has forced everyone to adjust to the work-from-home culture.