Nitpick: if you’re launching the calculator, the graped part is not required (and the blue part is only necessary if you are using the mouse to operate the calculator. If you are using the mouse to actually operate the Windows Calculator, your efficiency argument starts to look a little bit silly)
To launch calculator in Windows 8:
[ul]
[li]Press the Start key (on the keyboard - the thing with the Windows logo on it)[/li][li]Press C[/li][li]Press A[/li][li]Press L[/li][li]Press Enter[/li][/ul]
This also works in Windows 7 and has been the way I’ve launched calculator for years now. It’s no different in 8. It’s much faster than clicking through the menus to get to it in applications or wherever it is, and I don’t use it frequently enough to warrant having a desktop or taskbar shortcut.
this is a prime example of what I was talking about when I brought up “people who try to find the most difficult solution possible.” you’ve been able to pin programs to the taskbar since Windows 98.
I don’t have windows 8 but I just wanted to chime in to pit the fuckers who think that its better to try and lock you into their product, not by making the best product but by creating artificial shackles to their product.
Its largely why I don’t buy Apple anymore. I will not buy Apple unless they have a clear and demonstrably superior product because they will trap me in a way that will make me continue to purchase an inferior Apple product as long as it is not inferior by too much.
What I’m really worried about it as that Microsoft are planning to get rid of the desktop completely in the long term, and try to move everyone over to a Metro-style interface only. I really can’t see how the fuck I’m supposed to do any real work in that environment.
From the Metro Start Screen, swipe upwards from the bottom of the screen
Click on ALL APPS in the bottom right corner
Then find and click on the calculator icon.
totally notgonnahappen.com. Microsoft bends over backwards to support Windows’s 20+ years of legacy software. At most, the Desktop will become more “Metro-ized,” but will still be the desktop.
unlike the aforementioned Apple, which had the luxury of just tossing all of its legacy support in the bin. 'course, that’s because at the time nobody important was using Macs, so telling them to buy new computers or piss off wasn’t so risky.
Still more steps, and I have to release the mouse. AND type two-handed to get the L. You’ve never had a mouse with a built-in keypad? Okay, I haven’t for 25 years, but it was awesome. You’ve never customized an app so heavily that you only had to use the keyboard to TYPE stuff? And you call ME inefficient?
And why Microsoft’s business plan based on selling regular updates to Windows pisses so many users off. But AutoCAD’s is worse, with a fucking subscription service to keep milking customers every year when the product’s real improvements are miniscule. A whole matter of, “Why is that different? It just is.”
That was just a mistake on my part, not a deliberate attempt to shift the goalposts.
OK, the Metro Start screen is primarily designed for touch, but completely (and in my opinion, comfortably) usable with mouse and keyboard. Windows 8, taken as a whole, is not especially touch-reliant.
But hey, MS has heard the users who say they want the start button back and they want to boot straight to desktop, so I guess everything will be OK.
Seriously, do you operate the Windows Calculator app with the mouse? (that is, you enter and perform mathematical input by clicking on the calculator buttons with your mouse?)
Also, please describe the three clicks you say are necessary to launch Calc in Win7 (or XP, if you prefer) - I count four clicks (and on machines with a lot of installed applications, some scrolling within the Start menu)
You can do it in two. Just pin the calc to the Start menu by right clicking on it in accessories. From there click Start & click calc. Voila!
You can do this with any prog/accessory you use on a regular basis (I have character map set-up that way) and avoid cluttering the hell out of your task-bar – keeps things neat and convenient.
You can do exactly the same thing in Win8, though, by pinning it to the Start screen. When you clock on a desktop program there, you come back to the desktop.
The exact procedure - WinKey or Start charm > c > a > right click on Calculator > Pin to Start > drag Calculator to the position on the menu you want.
Then, Start > Calc to run it.
I will grant that there’s the optional extra step of dragging it to where you want on the Start screen, but that’s offset by the ease of having room for lots of programs there, if you choose to use it.
If you don’t choose to use it, then it’s trivial to get the Start menu back.
