Microsoft has announced a significant update to the Teams Desktop Client for Windows that aims to enhance performance and reduce startup times for calling features.
The update, detailed in the Message Center notification MC1189656 published on November 25, 2025, introduces a new process architecture designed to optimize resource usage and improve meeting experiences.
New Process Architecture for Better Performance
The upcoming change introduces a new child process, ms-teams_modulehost.exe, that will run separately from the primary Teams application process (ms-teams.exe).
Performance Improvement – The new architecture optimizes resource usage, delivering faster startup times and smoother meeting experiences through better workload distribution.
Separate Process Architecture – The calling stack now runs in its own dedicated child process rather than consuming resources from the main application, reducing system overhead.
Transparent to Users – No changes to user workflows or interface; the performance benefits happen entirely in the background.
This dedicated process will handle the calling stack independently, allowing Teams to distribute workloads more efficiently across system resources.
After the update, users who open Task Manager will notice a new process running under the primary Teams process.
Separating calling features into a dedicated module is expected to deliver faster startup times and smoother performance during meetings and calls.
Microsoft plans to begin the worldwide rollout in early January 2026, with completion expected by late January 2026.
The update will be available across all environments, including Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, and DoD tenants. However, Microsoft has noted that timelines may shift due to year-end feature flag rollout freezes.
Users will not experience any changes to their daily workflows or the Teams interface.
The performance improvements occur entirely in the background, so employees can continue using Teams as they usually do without needing to learn new features or adapt to interface changes.
While end users will not need to take any action, IT administrators should prepare their environments before the rollout begins.
Organisations should update endpoint management and security software to allowlist the new ms-teams_modulehost.exe process alongside the existing ms-teams.exe.
This ensures security solutions do not block or interfere with the new component.
Helpdesk teams should be informed about this change to prevent confusion during troubleshooting sessions.
When users report seeing a new process in Task Manager, support staff should recognise this as expected behaviour.
Internal documentation that references Teams process names should be updated to include the new module host process.
Microsoft has indicated that no compliance considerations have been identified with this update.
However, organisations are encouraged to review the change in accordance with their compliance requirements and security policies.
This update represents Microsoft’s continued commitment to improving Teams’ performance as the platform remains central to workplace collaboration.
By optimising how calling features are processed, organisations can expect more responsive meeting experiences and faster application startup times beginning in early 2026.
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