Windows Calculator is a
software calculator developed by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
and included in
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
. In its
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
incarnation it has four modes: standard, scientific, programmer, and a graphing mode. The standard mode includes a number pad and buttons for performing arithmetic operations. The scientific mode takes this a step further and adds exponents and trigonometric function, and programmer mode allows the user to perform operations related to
computer programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...
. In 2020, a graphing mode was added to the Calculator, allowing users to graph equations on a coordinate plane.
The Windows Calculator is one of a few applications that have been bundled in all versions of Windows, starting with
Windows 1.0
Windows 1.0 is the first major release of Microsoft Windows, a family of graphical operating systems for personal computers developed by Microsoft. It was first released to manufacturing in the United States on November 20, 1985, while the Euro ...
. Since then, the calculator has been upgraded with various capabilities.
In addition, the calculator has also been included with
Windows Phone
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design l ...
and
Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
.
History
![Microsoft Windows NT Calculator Version 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Microsoft_Windows_NT_Calculator_Version_3.1_261x269.png)
A simple arithmetic calculator was first included with
Windows 1.0
Windows 1.0 is the first major release of Microsoft Windows, a family of graphical operating systems for personal computers developed by Microsoft. It was first released to manufacturing in the United States on November 20, 1985, while the Euro ...
.
In
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched in 1990. It features a new graphical user interface (GUI) where applications are represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predeces ...
, a scientific mode was added, which included
exponents and
root
In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
s,
logarithm
In mathematics, the logarithm is the inverse function to exponentiation. That means the logarithm of a number to the base is the exponent to which must be raised, to produce . For example, since , the ''logarithm base'' 10 of ...
s,
factorial-based functions,
trigonometry
Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships between side lengths and angles of triangles. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies ...
(supports
radian
The radian, denoted by the symbol rad, is the unit of angle in the International System of Units (SI) and is the standard unit of angular measure used in many areas of mathematics. The unit was formerly an SI supplementary unit (before tha ...
,
degree and
gradian
In trigonometry, the gradian, also known as the gon (from grc, γωνία, gōnía, angle), grad, or grade, is a unit of measurement of an angle, defined as one hundredth of the right angle; in other words, there are 100 gradians in 90 degree ...
s angles), base conversions (2, 8, 10, 16), logic operations,
statistical functions such as single variable statistics and linear regression.
Windows 9x
Until
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
, it uses an
IEEE 754-1985
IEEE 754-1985 was an industry standard for representing floating-point numbers in computers, officially adopted in 1985 and superseded in 2008 by IEEE 754-2008, and then again in 2019 by minor revision IEEE 754-2019. During its 23 years, it was the ...
double-precision floating-point, and the highest representable number by the calculator is 2
1024, which is slightly above 10
308 (~1.80 × 10
308).
In
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...
and later, it uses an
arbitrary-precision arithmetic
In computer science, arbitrary-precision arithmetic, also called bignum arithmetic, multiple-precision arithmetic, or sometimes infinite-precision arithmetic, indicates that calculations are performed on numbers whose digits of precision are li ...
library, replacing the standard
IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...
floating point
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can b ...
library. It offers
bignum
In computer science, arbitrary-precision arithmetic, also called bignum arithmetic, multiple-precision arithmetic, or sometimes infinite-precision arithmetic, indicates that calculations are performed on numbers whose digits of precision are li ...
precision for basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and 32 digits of precision for advanced operations (
square root
In mathematics, a square root of a number is a number such that ; in other words, a number whose ''square'' (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or ⋅ ) is . For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16, because .
...
,
transcendental function
In mathematics, a transcendental function is an analytic function that does not satisfy a polynomial equation, in contrast to an algebraic function.
In other words, a transcendental function "transcends" algebra in that it cannot be expressed alge ...
s). The largest value that can be represented on the Windows Calculator is currently and the smallest is . (Also
! calculates the
gamma function
In mathematics, the gamma function (represented by , the capital letter gamma from the Greek alphabet) is one commonly used extension of the factorial function to complex numbers. The gamma function is defined for all complex numbers except ...
which is defined over all real numbers, only excluding the negative integers).
Windows 2000, XP and Vista
In
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...
,
digit grouping
A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form (e.g., "." in 12.45). Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The choi ...
is added. Degree and base settings are added to menu bar.
The calculators of
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
and
Vista
Vista usually refers to a distant view.
Vista may also refer to:
Software
*Windows Vista, the line of Microsoft Windows client operating systems released in 2006 and 2007
* VistA, (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) ...
were able to calculate using numbers beyond 10
10000, but calculating with these numbers (e.g. 10^2^2^2^2^2^2^2...) does increasingly slow down the calculator and make it unresponsive until the calculation has been completed.
These are the last versions of Windows Calculator, where calculating with
binary
Binary may refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1)
* Binary function, a function that takes two arguments
* Binary operation, a mathematical operation that ta ...
/
decimal/
hexadecimal/
octal
The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the base-8 number system, and uses the digits 0 to 7. This is to say that 10octal represents eight and 100octal represents sixty-four. However, English, like most languages, uses a base-10 number ...
numbers is included into scientific mode. In Windows 7, they were moved to ''programmer mode'', which is a new separate mode that co-exists with ''scientific mode''.
Windows 7
In
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
, separate programmer, statistics, unit conversion, date calculation, and worksheets modes were added. Tooltips were removed. Furthermore, Calculator's interface was revamped for the first time since its introduction. The base conversion functions were moved to the programmer mode and statistics functions were moved to the statistics mode. Switching between modes does not preserve the current number, clearing it to 0.
The highest number is now limited to 10
10000 again.
In every mode except programmer mode, one can see the history of calculations. The app was redesigned to accommodate
multi-touch. Standard mode behaves as a simple checkbook calculator; entering the sequence
6 * 4 + 12 / 4 - 4 * 5 gives the answer 25. In scientific mode,
order of operations is followed while doing calculations (multiplication and division are done before addition and subtraction), which means
6 * 4 + 12 / 4 - 4 * 5 =
7.
In programmer mode, inputting a number in decimal has a lower and upper limit, depending on the data type, and must always be an integer. Data type of number in decimal mode is signed n-bit integer when converting from number in hexadecimal, octal, or binary mode.
![Windows 8](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Windows_8.1_Calculator.png)
On the right of the main Calculator, one can add a panel with date calculation, unit conversion and worksheets. Worksheets allow one to calculate a result of a chosen field based on the values of other fields. Pre-defined templates include calculating a car's fuel economy (mpg and L/100 km), a vehicle lease, and a mortgage. In pre-beta versions of Windows 7, Calculator also provided a Wages template.
Windows 8.1
While the traditional Calculator is still included with
Windows 8.1, a
Metro-style Calculator is also present, featuring a full-screen interface as well as normal, scientific, and conversion modes.
Windows 10
The Calculator in
non-LTSC editions of
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
is a
Universal Windows Platform app. In contrast, Windows 10 LTSC (which does not include universal Windows apps) includes the traditional calculator, but which is now named . Both calculators provide the features of the traditional calculator included with Windows 7, such as unit conversions for volume, length, weight, temperature, energy, area, speed, time, power, data, pressure and angle, and the history list which the user can clear.
Both the universal Windows app and LTSC's register themselves with the system as handlers of a '' pseudo-protocol. This registration is similar to that performed by any other well-behaved application when it registers itself as a handler for a filetype (e.g. ) or protocol (e.g. ).
All Windows 10 editions (both LTSC and non-LTSC) continue to have a , which however is just a stub that launches (via ShellExecute) the handler that is associated with the '' pseudo-protocol. As with any other protocol or filetype, when there are multiple handlers to choose from, users are free to choose which handler they prefer either via the classic control panel ('Default programs' settings) or the immersive UI settings ('Default Apps' settings) or from the command prompt via .
In the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, a currency converter mode was added to Calculator.
On 6 March 2019, Microsoft released the
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
for Calculator on
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continu ...
under the
MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...
.
Windows 11
In Windows 11, the Calculator app's user interface was modified to match the design of Windows 11 and a new settings page is present for users to toggle between the themes of the app without changing the operating system's theme. In 2021, Microsoft announced to migrate the codebase of the Calculator app to C# in order to welcome more developers to contribute to the app.
Features
By default, Calculator runs in standard mode, which resembles a four-function calculator. More advanced functions are available in scientific mode, including
logarithm
In mathematics, the logarithm is the inverse function to exponentiation. That means the logarithm of a number to the base is the exponent to which must be raised, to produce . For example, since , the ''logarithm base'' 10 of ...
s,
numerical base conversions, some
logical operators
In logic, a logical connective (also called a logical operator, sentential connective, or sentential operator) is a logical constant. They can be used to connect logical formulas. For instance in the syntax of propositional logic, the binary c ...
,
operator precedence
In mathematics and computer programming, the order of operations (or operator precedence) is a collection of rules that reflect conventions about which procedures to perform first in order to evaluate a given mathematical expression.
For exampl ...
,
radian
The radian, denoted by the symbol rad, is the unit of angle in the International System of Units (SI) and is the standard unit of angular measure used in many areas of mathematics. The unit was formerly an SI supplementary unit (before tha ...
,
degree and
gradians support as well as simple single-variable
statistical functions. It does not provide support for user-defined functions,
complex number
In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted , called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation i^= -1; every complex number can be expressed in the fo ...
s, storage variables for intermediate results (other than the classic accumulator memory of pocket calculators), automated
polar-
cartesian coordinates conversion, or support for two-variables statistics.
Calculator supports
keyboard shortcut
computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...
s; all Calculator features have an associated keyboard shortcut.
Calculator in programmer mode cannot accept or display a number larger than a
signed QWORD (16
hexadecimal digits/64 bits). The largest number it can handle is therefore 0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF (decimal 9,223,372,036,854,775,807). Any calculations in programmer mode which exceed this limit will
overflow, even if those calculations would succeed in other modes. In particular,
scientific notation
Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too large or too small (usually would result in a long string of digits) to be conveniently written in decimal form. It may be referred to as scientific form or standard index form, o ...
is not available in this mode.
Issues
* For some
transcendental function
In mathematics, a transcendental function is an analytic function that does not satisfy a polynomial equation, in contrast to an algebraic function.
In other words, a transcendental function "transcends" algebra in that it cannot be expressed alge ...
operations, such as
square root
In mathematics, a square root of a number is a number such that ; in other words, a number whose ''square'' (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or ⋅ ) is . For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16, because .
...
operator (
sqrt(4) − 2 = −8.1648465955514287168521180122928e−39
) causing the number to be calculated incorrectly due to
catastrophic cancelation
In numerical analysis, catastrophic cancellation is the phenomenon that subtracting good approximations to two nearby numbers may yield a very bad approximation to the difference of the original numbers.
For example, if there are two studs, one L_ ...
.
* Older versions of the universal Calculator in
non-LTSC editions of
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
doesn't use any regional format (can be set in Region Control Panel) that are different from the app's display language for number formatting (the app's language is English (United States) but Windows's regional format is set to a different format).
Calculator Plus
Calculator Plus is a separate application for
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
and
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...
users that adds a 'Conversion' mode over the Windows XP version of the Calculator. The 'Conversion' mode supports
unit conversion
Conversion of units is the conversion between different units of measurement for the same quantity, typically through multiplicative conversion factors which change the measured quantity value without changing its effects.
Overview
The process ...
and
currency conversion
In finance, an exchange rate is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another currency. Currencies are most commonly national currencies, but may be sub-national as in the case of Hong Kong or supra-national as in the case of ...
. Currency exchange rates can be updated using the built-in update feature, which downloads exchange rates from the
European Central Bank
The European Central Bank (ECB) is the prime component of the monetary Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's most important centr ...
.
See also
*
Formula calculator
*
List of formerly proprietary software
This is a list of notable software packages which were published under a proprietary software license but later released as free and open-source software, or into the public domain.
In some cases, the company continues to publish proprietary rel ...
*
Microsoft Mathematics
Microsoft Math Solver (formerly Microsoft Mathematics and Microsoft Math) is an entry-level educational app that solves math and science problems. Developed and maintained by Microsoft, it is primarily targeted at students as a learning tool. Unt ...
*
Power Calculator
References
External links
Windows Calculatoron
Microsoft Store
Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform app ...
Source code on GitHub Microsoft Calculator Plus
{{Windows Components
1985 software
Formerly proprietary software
Free and open-source software
Mathematical software
Microsoft free software
Software calculators
Software using the MIT license
Universal Windows Platform apps
Windows components
Xbox One software
Windows Phone software