How to adjust camera settings for any Windows webcam without admin rights

Camera settings is missing from Microsoft's New Teams client. Although 1st party camera apps (e.g. use LogiTune for Logitech webcams) offer access to their corresponding device settings, many enterprise users don't have admin rights on their own PCs and so can't install them.

Here's how to get around that.

Step 1: Download ffmpeg

Download the latest ffmpeg *win64-gpl.zip release.

Step 2: Decompress the ffmpeg download

Extract the zip file to a location of your choosing.

Step 3: Find the name of the webcam whose settings you need to access

On Windows 10: Start -> Settings -> Devices. Look for a Cameras section in the left menu. If you don't see one, click on Bluetooth & other devices. External webcams, which typically have a microphone, should be listed under Audio with a webcam icon beside them, as depicted below:

Note the name of the camera, which we'll call Camera Name.

Step 4: Create a batch file that opens the camera settings

Open a text editor, and insert the following lines:

cd "Full\Path\to\ffmpeg\bin\folder"
.\ffmpeg -f dshow -show_video_device_dialog true -i video="Camera Name"

For example, if you extracted the ffmpeg archive to C:\Users\YourUsername\ffmpeg and your Camera Name is Logitech BRIO, the above lines would be:

cd "C:\Users\YourUsername\ffmpeg\bin"
.\ffmpeg -f dshow -show_video_device_dialog true -i video="Logitech BRIO"

Save the text file with a .bat extension and close the text editor.

Step 5: Open the camera settings

Find the batch file from Step 4 above and double-click it. The camera settings dialog, which looks like the below, should appear:

Comments

[Oliver]

Excellent! I must admit I was skeptical, but it works.

Shame that both Teams and Logitech are so lame in providing a proper solution. (Logi Tune - on a computer with admin right - works. But why do I have to run it every time for just setting the zoom?! This should happen in the background!)

[jdrch]

Excellent!

Thanks!

Shame that [...]Teams

Given that the Classic Teams and ffmpeg camera options menus are the same, it appears Classic Teams may have shipped with ffmpeg or ffmpeg code. This might problematic for New Teams from a licensing perspective at the very least, considering that New Teams is closed source.

Shame that [...] Logitech

It's disappointing to me that Logitech cameras don't retain their zoom setting across sessions. However, I've noticed that other applications - e.g. Windows Hello facial recognition unlock - often reset the camera settings when they use the camera. This happens even in the same session during which LogiTune was used to customize the settings!

I think there needs to be a mechanism for the camera to detect its settings have been reset and restore them in real time.