Multiple Teams Instances

Guide and PowerShell Scripts for running multiple MS Teams instances

Why not use Teams in the browser?

The desktop app gives you full functionality in Teams - like calling and meeting and desktop sharing. Performance is better in the desktop app due to data caching.

Let's get it working!

The guide assumes you are using Windows 10. But similar steps apply to Windows 8 and 7.

• Press Win key and type user. Select "Add, edit, or remove other users"
• Click on "Add someone else to this PC"
• Click on "I don't have this person's sign-in information" > "Add a user without a Microsoft Account"
• Type your new Windows account login and password. I recommend a sim
• Press CTRL+ALT+DEL and click "switch user"
• Login as the newly created Windows user.
• Download and install the second instance MS Teams.
• Now press CTRL+ALT+DEL again > "switch user" > select the original account.
• Open PowerShell console and run the following script:

#run as admin 
if (!([Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal][Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole] "Administrator")) { Start-Process powershell.exe "-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File `"$PSCommandPath`"" -Verb RunAs; exit }


$credential = Get-Credential
Start-Process "C:\Users\$($credential.UserName)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Teams\Update.exe" '--processStart "Teams.exe"' -WorkingDirectory $env:windir -Credential $credential

• When prompted - enter your secondary Windows account that you created earlier.
• Then login to the new MS Teams instance using any account you want. You will now see your second of Teams.
• Done. Enjoy your second Team instance.

Automate running the second instance

• Option 1 - Run_Teams_Instance_Ask_For_Credentials.bat - you can double-click this script to open a second instance of Teams. Upon running the script, you will be prompted to enter your secondary Windows credentials.
• Option 2 - You can hardcode your secondary Windows account's login and password in the Run_Multiple_Teams_PA.ps1 file
• You can now double-click Run_Multiple_Teams_PA.bat file. Second Teams instance will launch with no credentials prompt.

Limitations of the approach

• If you need to run 3 instances of Teams - you will need 3 Windows accounts with Teams installed.
• If you run multiple Team instances and use the same Microsoft account - you will receive notifications in all of them. If someone calls you - you will see two incoming calls at the same time.
• Teams is a resource hog. It uses a lot of RAG and processing power.

Troubleshooting

If you run the scripts and everything appears to work correctly but no new instance of teams starts up, close all open instaces of teams, open Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) and find all Teams processes and end the task. Run the script againa and you should now have a new instance of teams to log into.

Summary

I am looking forward to Microsoft implementing multiple Teams instances natively in order to avoid this workaround. In the meanwhile, this is the only way that works for me.