Teams Annotation – “Interact with background content” option not available

Atharva Deshpande 20 Reputation points
2026-09-21T12:13:44.45+00:00

Hi Community,

We are troubleshooting an issue where the “Interact with background content” option is not available while using annotations in Microsoft Teams.

The affected users are able to:

Join and host Teams meetings normally.

Share their entire screen.

Start Annotations successfully.

Use the standard annotation tools.

However, when the presenter starts annotation while sharing their own screen, the “Interact with background content” option does not appear.

The users are assigned a custom Teams Meeting Policy, so we are trying to determine whether a meeting policy setting could be limiting this functionality.

Has anyone encountered this scenario?

Specifically, we would like to understand:

Is “Interact with background content” controlled by any Teams Meeting Policy setting?

Are there any dependencies on Microsoft Whiteboard, app policies, meeting policies, licensing, or tenant-level settings?

Is the feature dependent on a particular Teams desktop client version or update channel?

Are there any PowerShell policy parameters we should check?

What would be the recommended way to determine whether this is a policy issue, tenant configuration issue, or Teams client issue?

We are planning to compare the affected custom meeting policy against the Global (Org-wide default) policy and also test the affected user with the Global policy to help isolate the issue.

Any guidance or experience with this behavior would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Meetings and calls | Screen sharing
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  1. Levi Cornwell 255 Reputation points
    2026-09-23T15:16:10.52+00:00

    I'd check the Collaborative annotations setting in the affected users' effective Teams Meeting Policy first. Microsoft lists this as the policy that controls whether participants can collaborate while screen sharing.

    Since they already plan to compare the custom policy with Global, that's a good test. You can also check the effective policy with Teams PowerShell and compare it with Global, rather than only comparing the policy templates. Microsoft notes that direct user assignments and group assignments can affect which policy is actually effective.

    If Collaborative annotations is enabled and the option is still missing, I'd then test the same user with the Global policy and the latest Teams desktop client. If it works there, that would point more toward policy/configuration than the client itself.

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  2. Helen Luu 3,385 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-09-21T14:26:19.4933333+00:00

    Hello @Atharva Deshpande

    At the moment, I have not found any documentation or configuration setting indicating that the "Interact with background content" feature can be explicitly enabled or disabled through a Teams meeting policy.However, since you mentioned that all affected users are assigned to a custom Teams Meeting Policy, could you please share screenshots of the policy configuration for my review?

    As part of the troubleshooting process, I recommend comparing the affected custom meeting policy with the Global (Org-wide default) policy to identify any configuration differences. Additionally, if possible, please assign the affected user to the Global policy and verify whether the issue persists. This comparison will help determine whether the behavior is related to a conflict or misconfiguration within the custom meeting policy. If the issue does not occur when the user is assigned the Global policy, it may indicate that a setting within the custom policy is contributing to the problem.

    I look forward to your update.

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