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Setting

Once upon a time, Skype was Skype and everything was good. Then Microsoft bought them and everything became confusing; really confusing.

In another point in the time, Slack came into existence. It caught steam. All the cool kids used it, the marketing was a bit viral and the company went public company on the NYSE.

Competition

To compete, Microsoft developed Microsoft-Teams; the Microsoft version of Slack.

Microsoft added Teams to their Office365 packages so anyone with an Office365 account could use Microsoft Teams. But it still wasn't enough.

To make the offering more attractive, they offer Microsoft-Teams for free. This is up to 300 accounts on the same domain.

Convergence

At this point Skype for Business is becoming Microsoft Teams:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/faq-journey

What is interesting is that if you have a Microsoft Teams License (free), you can use Skype for Business:
https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/free

1- Signup for free Office365 account: https://portal.office.com

Unlicensed accounts are free. You cannot do anything per se but it doesn't cost anything, so there is no harm.

2- Sync with on-site Active Directory (if needed)

If you have an onsite AD, you can setup a separate server just for the purpose of syncing with Office365 Azure Active Directory.

Download Microsoft Azure Active Directory Connect here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=47594

 3- Assign Microsoft Teams License

You'll have to Connect to Office365/AzureAD via Powershell but once you do, you can perform 3 steps.

    3a- assign a Location:

    set-msoluser -UserPrincipalName This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it -usagelocation US

    3b- check the Office365 Licenses

    get-msoluser -UserPrincipalName This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |fl |findstr /i licen

    3c- assign a Microsoft Teams License

    set-msoluserlicense -UserPrincipalName This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it -AddLicenses "foodomain:TEAMS_COMMERCIAL_TRIAL"

4- Download Skype for Business Basic

To make matters worse, documentation will try to convince you to download the software at: https://portal.office.com/account#installs

While this is logical, this will not work if you have Office 2016/2019 installed. This is because the download is a click-to-run (c2r) application. C2R applications cannot be mixed with others.

The Skype for Business Basic Full Client (448.1 MB) is found here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49440

Or if you need to download in Powershell through wget:
wget 'https://download.microsoft.com/download/8/7/E/87E24B50-9C85-4B1D-A581-94AA037803F8/LyncEntry_bypass_ship_x64_en-us_exe/lyncentry.exe' -outfile 'lyncentry_x64.exe'

Typically, Skype for Business Basic needed an onsite Lync Server or an Offce365 account (Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Enterprise E3 or Office 365 Enterprise E4).

I guess because of the convergence of Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams, the Microsoft Teams license will work with Skype for Business Basic now.

Note that the download is called: lyncentry.exe

5- Install Skype for Business Basic

6- Login to Skype for Business Basic

That's it! It should work! Good job, well done!