Windows 7: Calculator

The good old calculator is back in Windows 7.

While scientists, coders, and statisticians will appreciate Windows 7's built-in calculator's programmer, statistics, and scientific modes, everyday people will love figuring out things like hourly wages and mortgage payments without a spreadsheet.

Yes, it may seem ridiculous to give more than a few lines of attention to something as minor as a calculator, but until you've seen the built-in calculator in the Windows 7 Preview, you haven't known pure calculator bliss.

This default calculator includes unit conversions, date calculations, and a neat new set of "templates" that let you do things like figure out gas mileage, hourly wages, mortgage payments, leases, and more.

Use the Mode drop-down menu to switch between scientific, statistics, and programmer mode. Those are all exactly what you'd expect.

Standard mode: Statistics mode: Programmer mode: Scientific mode: Hit the Options menu to get to the interesting stuff.

The date calculator lets you figure out the duration between two dates: Or add and subtract a period of time from a given date:

While it might be easier to just use Google for this, there's also a unit converter built-in: But the templates area is where real-life scenarios that would usually require a spreadsheet of some kind can be done.