Get Old Classic Calculator in Windows 10

Windows 10 introduces the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), which provides a common app platform for every Windows 10 device. This also means that your favorite classic Win32 desktop applications are going to vanish one by one over time, just as already happened to the Sticky Notes and Calculator applications. And Paint appears to be the next, which will be replaced by Paint 3D.

This post tells you how to get back the old Windows 8 classic Calculator desktop program in Windows 10.

Get Windows 8 Classic Calculator in Windows 10

Here are the zip files enclosing the Windows 8.1 version of Calculator (calc.exe) along with the MUI files for various languages.

Download Old Calculator from the following link, suitable for your Operating System (bitness).

SHA-256

classic_calculator_x64.zip – 35e1d8f9b50ceea79ab45cfb4b5326101d42cf79e80028d7523fcf255349698d
classic_calculator_x86.zip – 4517ef1f7e2bb7f5359ae81c27d77b0619c179ed01e1b692649d108373b1b715

Extracting Windows 8 Calculator

Step 1: Unzip the archive and extract the contents to a folder.

Get Old calculator in Windows 10

Step 2: Move the file calc1.exe to C:\Windows\System32 folder

Get Old classic calculator in Windows 10

Step 3: Move the corresponding MUI file (calc1.exe.mui) to the folder that corresponds to your Operating System language. For example, if using English (United States), copy the MUI file from “en-US” in the source folder, to “C:\Windows\System32\en-US” folder.

Get Old calculator in Windows 10

I’ve also included several MUI files for other languages. Here is the list of language MUI files enclosed in the zip file.

Ref: Language Code Table



  • ar-SA
  • bg-BG
  • cs-CZ
  • da-DK
  • de-DE
  • el-GR
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • et-EE
  • fi-FI
  • fr-FR
  • he-IL
  • hr-HR
  • hu-HU
  • it-IT
  • ja-JP
  • ko-KR
  • lt-LT
  • lv-LV
  • nb-NO
  • nl-NL
  • pl-PL
  • pt-BR
  • pt-PT
  • ro-RO
  • ru-RU
  • sk-SK
  • sl-SI
  • sr-Latn-RS
  • sv-SE
  • th-TH
  • tr-TR
  • uk-UA
  • zh-cn
  • zh-HK

Step 4: Run the REG file named register.reg. This REG file (a plain-text file) sets a registry key so that when you run calc or calc.exe from Run dialog, it launches the classic Calculator instead of the Modern or UWP Calculator app.

Get classic calculator in Windows 10
Get Old calculator in Windows 10

Get Old calculator in Windows 10

For your information, the REG file creates the following App Paths key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\calc.exe

And points it to C:\Windows\System32\calc1.exe

That’s it! You can now enjoy your classic Windows 7 / Windows 8 Calculator.

How to I remove Classic Calculator?

To reverse the changes, run the “undo.reg” file. Then delete calc1.exe from Windows\System32 directory. Also, delete calc1.exe.mui from the corresponding language directory, such as Windows\System32\en-US.


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

27 thoughts on “Get Old Classic Calculator in Windows 10”

  1. I’m grateful for this solution of you. That’s unbelievable !

    p.s: It’s 11 August 2017 – currently running Turkish Windows 10 x64 with the latest updates. And this solution worked for me.

    p.s for admin: I’m ashamed that you blocked users from Turkey. I just wanted to say thank you, so I turned on my vpn. Can you do us a favor and stop block users from Turkey? Please?

    Reply
  2. Thans a lot; it works on my Win 10 October 2018 version.
    No need to do the reg-stuff, just unpack it, run it and pin it to the taskbar, then it’s there always for you!

    Reply
  3. I opened the mortgage calculator option. How does one remove it when reopening calculator 1? Should be an option for NONE.

    Reply
    • @Erik: It works perfectly fine in v1809 which is the latest build. You need to put the .exe and .mui files in the locations mentioned in the article. Otherwise it won’t work.

  4. The Windows 10 calculator takes far too much space on the Desktop. From several sources I have worked out a way to bring back the Windows 7 calculator, assuming you can find a Win 7 system. Here are the steps:

    On Windows 7
    Make copy of C:\WINDOWS\system32\calc.exe
    Make copy of C:\WINDOWS\system32\en-US\calc.exe.mui
    [or your preferred localization]
    Rename copies to win7calc.exe and win7calc.exe.mui
    [renaming is to avoid mashing standard Windows calculator]

    On Windows 10
    Put win7calc.exe.mui in C:\WINDOWS\system32\en-US [or other]
    Put win7calc.exe in C:\WINDOWS\system32
    In properties for win7calc.exe, set compatibilty mode to
    Windows 7 for all users
    Using Run, open %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start
    Menu\Programs
    Right click & drag win7calc.exe to that folder, create shortcut
    Rename shortcut and reboot

    Reply
  5. Thank You for the tutorial! It works great in Windows 11. The only oddity I have noticed in Windows 11 is that wherever there is a radio button on the calculator there is not much space between the button and the title, but that does not affect the performance one bit.

    Reply
  6. This doesn’t work anymore as of Windows 10 version 22H2 build 19045.2486. When calc or calc.exe is run the old app is launched.
    By the way, having to rewrite my comment because I forgot to type an email is idiotic. This isn’t 1998.

    Reply
  7. The last comulative 22H2 update January 2024 broke several applications run on Intel Core 2 duo and quad core CPU’s. Yet several apps behave like an embedded Trogen virus found NTOSkernal. AVG and defender missed after a ransomware attack clicking on a trusted site article link.

    Reply
  8. Thank you! That worked perfectly! I just updated to win 10 and I HATED that app because it took up a LOT of screen space and the app remained active even after you closed it!

    Reply

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