4 ms·

Oddly enough, on Windows 8 it appears in Scientific and Programmer modes but is greyed out, and I couldn't get it to activate. Why not hide it?

• agarcia-deniz 12y ago
  just noticed that myself, had pretty much the same thought.
• userbinator 12y ago
  ...or why not make it usable in all modes? I think the calculator in Windows 7 and above took a seriously backwards step in functionality - they seem to have thought that programmers don't need exponentiation nor square roots nor floating-point(!), so there is no such function in "programmer mode" and you cannot change the number base in "scientific mode". That would only be a minor annoyance, if not for the fact that switching between modes clears the accumulator! http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/windows-7-calculator-not-useful/c61ef069-f5d6-422a-8973-7cff6fc36528 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-w... It is a classic case of too much modality in UI design. The first time I discovered this "feature" after losing the result of a long calculation, I thought it was a bug or I'd accidentally hit the wrong key. When I found out this was by design, it elicited a loud enough "WTF!?" that caught my co-workers attentions and caused them to exclaim the same thing after showing it to them. Fortunately the calc.exe from XP runs fine on 7 and 8. There's another "feature" which I hadn't personally run into, but would be just as incensed if I did: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4ec1b55b-b516-471d-aa77-6b37b69d8df6/action?threadDisplayName=windows&forum=w7itproui https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4e...