Prevent WebEx Teams from auto-updating

[jeremy.lippert]

Since the September 9th release it seems that WebEx Teams will auto update itself to the latest version even without the user initiating the update via the update green circle or bouncing the app. We are using the ALLUSERS=1 install method and we would love to be able to turn off the auto update function in our VDI environment as we use non-persistent desktops and we don't want newer versions running from the users profile (%localappdata%\CiscoSparkLauncher).

Is there any way to prevent the auto-update feature of WebEx Teams?

[Vaijanath Sonvane]

Hi,

As mentioned in below URL, Cisco performs auto update of Webex Teams.

https://help.webex.com/en-us/g1otrv/Update-the-Cisco-Webex-Teams-App-to-the-Latest-Release#task_2ADC4AF1D462F6868EE2732E73BB49D3

The network requirements guide specifies that Webex Teams uses *.rackcdn.com for software/firmware update.

https://help.webex.com/en-us/WBX000028782/Network-Requirements-for-Webex-Teams-Services

May be you can block this URL to prevent WebEx Teams from auto-updating. I would recommend opening a Cisco TAC case to know more details about the effects of blocking this URL. 

[jeremy.lippert]

We will try that out. Thanks

[Jonathan Schulenberg]

rackcdn.com is not used exclusively by Cisco; blocking it will likely have very undesirable consequences for other websites. Talk to your Cisco AM a about this; it’s likely the BU is already aware of this challenge for some customers and perhaps have a plan to address it. We cannot discuss roadmap details on the public forums since that requires an NDA.

[jeremy.lippert]

As of September 26, 2019 Version: 3.0.13464.0 of WebEx Teams there is the following key that is now in HKLM:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cisco Spark Native]
"AutoUpgradeEnabled"=dword:00000001

Cisco TAC just last week told us that there was no way to prevent auto updating or a install parameter to kill it.

Testing the key with dword:00000000 to see if it does prevent updating or what.

[jeremy.lippert]

Can confirm changing AutoUpgradeEnabled to 0 will not allow WebEx Teams to even download the latest version.