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Comment by armini | Hacker News Reader

Looks like Microsoft are starting to flex their partnership with OpenAI & stable diffusion into their tech stack.

What can go wrong ? Is not like most of their programs are a UI disaster (Office 365, Teams, Explorer, Calculator, Win 10) /s

Wait I'm genuinely curious: what's wrong with Calculator?

"Windows 11 calculator is creating many problems such as the app surprisingly crashes, opens then immediately closes, or not performs as expected. Some people complain that the built-in Microsoft Store application does not work after they have received an update." [1]

The fact that there are 14 ways to fix the Calculator app listed in this article, including even "Disable Windows Firewall temporarily", is simply beyond any sort of rant.

Somewhat off-topic, listened recently to Computers Barely Work - Interview with Linux Legend Greg Kroah-Hartman [2] and, as hubristic and cliché as it is, the takeaway was: we must delete every software, destroy every CPU ever made, and start all over again.

[1] https://www.howto-connect.com/fix-calculator-not-working-in-... (edit: other links about fixing the Calculator app, https://www.groovypost.com/howto/calculator-app-not-working-..., https://appuals.com/calculator-not-working-windows — the fact that these SEO spam sites exist is also a problem, an app as trivial as a calculator should have one single, self-evident button for the end user to click and fix it, whatever that might imply)

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9MjGziRw-c

The blog post you linked does not look very trustworthy. Many of these steps are generic Windows troubleshooting steps, with some clearly dumb ones thrown in. There are tons of sites that produce troubleshooting articles like this one for just about anything in Windows (although one of the steps is usually to use some product they're advertising). Googling for "windows 11 calculator crashing reddit" brings a total of two posts, so it's nowhere near widespread, and probably not a real problem.

It was indeed the second link I clicked after a summary search. Personally, I have not used the Windows Calculator app in a decade or so, but I blame Microsoft for other thousands of hours of pointless eye strain trying to fix and get work done through their applications. Still, I don't think one is unreasonable to expect that a calculator app should never crash after an update or be a nuisance if it's made by a 1.89 trillion USD market cap company with over 100,000 software engineers on payroll and aspirations to open the new world of statistically learned agents.

Nevertheless, as pointed out by Greg Kroah-Hartman and others, our stack is extremely feeble, so it becomes reasonable to expect the unreasonable from time to time, even with somewhat trivial applications.

As I said, I don’t think many people experienced Windows Calculator not working. Is it completely impossible? No, because computers are weird sometimes.

But all three articles are just spam. The writers of those articles definitely did not experience nor fix Calculator crashing, they just took their template “how to fix [modern Windows] $application” post and replaced $application with Calculator. You can also find similarly absurd posts for macOS [0], with the fixes being very generic and applicable to any app (force quit, safe mode, update the OS), workarounds (use Spotlight Search), and one user error fix (disable RPN mode). And, oh look, GNOME Calculator on Ubuntu can break as well [1] (but to be fair, that one’s caused by the ridiculous Snap obsession of Ubuntu).

[0]: https://www.guidingtech.com/best-fixes-for-calculator-app-no...

[1]: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1128243/calculator-wont-star...

I mentioned Greg Kroah-Hartman's interview specifically to point out a greater issue and to not fall into a flamewar: my calculator app is better than yours. Just as a mention, my favorite calculator app is a bash function:

  function calc {
    python3 -c "from math import *; print($*)"
  }

and then simply call:

  calc "5 + cos(pi)"

it never fails, even if computers are weird, and there are no spam articles on how to fix it since there is nothing to fix.

Microsoft also seem keen to deprecate two other simple Windows applications - Paint (being replaced with "Paint 3D") and Snipping Tool (to be replaced with "Snip & Sketch"). I don't understand it, it feels like they've started with the question "ok what if we replaced $tool?" rather than "what does $tool need to do?"

Paint 3D itself was deprecated later and Paint was un-deprecated, it's just updated by the store now. (It even has a Windows 11 redesign!)

Snipping Tool was deprecated, but everything at this point was ported over to the (arguably better) "new" Snipping Tool, and it just got screen(/area) recording too.

It's funny that there is a use for the word "un-deprecated" but that's good news!

Now that I think about it I guess I'm glad that they didn't remove or replace the original tools - I could still use them.

"Precated"?

Or reprecated :D

Sniping tool also was deprecated. It even at one point had a message and link to Snip & Sketch.

That's what I meant -- old "Snipping Tool" was deprecated and the newer Snip & Sketch, originally forked from OneNote's screenshot utility, was renamed to "Snipping Tool".

It still has this message

edit: actually I'm on Windows 10 still, maybe it's different in Windows 11

> the takeaway was: we must delete every software, destroy every CPU ever made, and start all over again.

Understandable sentiment, but good luck doing it any better than what we currently have. Every technology and the assumptions it was based on is outdated pretty soon.

~4 billion years ago there was possibly a big refactor [1]; after the refactor the RNA machine got somewhat stable for the next 4+ billion years. There is no technology in our computer machines that will be able to withstand 4 billion years of external change. In fact, with all our clouds and AIs, we are closer to the caves than to that kind of technology. But it's great that the techno-giants of today with trillions in market cap and billions in R&D give us new drop-shadow effects: we need more riboswitch-like technology [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riboswitch#:~:text=Gallery%20o...

It would be pretty easy to improve: do the same thing but without pervasive ads and tracking.

That's like saying you can easily fight climate change by reducing CO2 emissions. It's not wrong but it ignores human behaviour and profit-oriented incentives.

And yet, entire ecosystems exist where this behaviour is not prevalent.

> "Disable Windows Firewall temporarily"

I can only presume this is because Microsoft records and sends your calculator inputs to themselves. Windows is just one gigantic spyware operation. So glad I can run 99% of my daily ops on Linux

The site is a spam blog site written purely for SEO and has very little to do with the actual calculator app or offering actually useful advice. It's basically just a copy-paste text dump of every generic trouble shooting tip someone could find on the internet.

Here is a link [1] from the Microsoft forum with an advice to

    ...right click on Windows PowerShell and select Run as administrator.
    Then type following command and press Enter key:
    Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.WindowsCalculator | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml" -Verbose}

It's just ridiculous for a Calculator app fix, no matter how you put it.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/954577/c...

But this command isn't about fixing the calculator app at all, it's for reregistering the application if you have removed it from your profile.

I have the new calculator app open literally all of the time and I've not run into any issues with it at all. In fact since it's been updated, it saves me from using Google searches for plenty of types of conversions too so I'd suggest the new update has been a large success.

Yes, and that makes it even more funny (and disheartening): 2023's self-fixing technology is the old classic "have you tried turning it off and on again" [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2FB1P_Mn8

To name just one thing that bugs me: You can't switch modes with function keys any more. Previously you could go between Scientific,Programmer, etc. with function keys and now you have to use the miserable hamburger menu.

I absolutely hate the UI as well, but that's probably subjective. For example, why isn't the input area clearly distinct instead of blending into the surrounding with no border ?

Which Windows had the switching with Function keys? I just tested with the one from windows 7 and you switch modes with alt+number. Function keys are only used in programmer mode to switch between hex/dex. Those same shortcuts work in the new one. Same with the one from XP that has only two modes, but you can't switch between them using alt+number.

Ugh you’re right. I misremembered which combo does what. I seem to recall function keys not working in programmer mode for a while, but now I am also doubting my mental stability

It is half the screen, hard to use with a mouse, gray on gray, slow to start.

Even at 800x600 it's not half the screen. Starts at about the same time as the old one. Is black on white. The old one is blue on blue. usage with mouse is the same as the old one. Even the math engine is literally the same.

I use it regularly. It seems fine to me, but I do wish it had copy and paste.

> I do wish it had copy and paste

Have you tried Ctrl + C/V in calculator? Or righ-clicking on the numbers and seeing the Copy and Paste options that pop up?

It definitely does have copy and paste. I double checked it right now.

The technology just isn't there yet.

I can recommend IPython, or just plain PowerShell for simple calculations.

Yeah, I use the Python REPL for any quick calculations - it's usually already open, it's fast and it is more flexible. I still think the default calculator should be quick and functional for those of us who don't do developer things.

It has exactly the same copy paste functionality as the old one.

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