Windows 7 Calculator Programmer Mode shows -1 when all bits are on when Dec and Byte or Word or DWord or QWord are selected. i.e. a byte value of FF in Dec shows -1 instead of 255

Question

Calculator Programmer mode calculation issue

Answer 1

It seems a "bit" hit and miss to me, sometimes it seems to give the correct answer and at other times I get the -1 result.  I assume it is my fault and my own operating error.  It would be nice if it was consistently wrong or consistently correct.

Maybe it is a "bug"?

How to report a bug to microsoft?

http://www.google.com/search?q=report+a+bug+to+microsoft&rls=com.microsoft:en-au&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

Incident Reports for Technical Support from Microsoft

http://ampalliance.org/blogs/microsoft/archive/2007/08/28/Incident-Reports-for-Technical-Support-from-Microsoft.aspx

Microsoft Product Support Reports

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CEBF3C7C-7CA5-408F-88B7-F9C79B7306C0&displaylang=en

Maybe also you can settle on some alternative solution for your calculations.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-au&q=hex+to+decimal&aq=0&oq=hex+to+&aqi=g10

I can see that this is causing you concerns from your earlier post here, which also has no replies.

Windows 7 Calculator issue in Programmer Mode

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/isvwindowserrors/thread/1cc66cc9-e82c-4fcc-8e70-28b8f7c2ef41

Answer 2

The calculator uses 2's Compliment so -128 +64+32+16+8+4+2+1 = -1

Hope it helped.

Answer 3

I hatted it. It should be possible I decide about how to deal the number.

Who doesn't know that 11111111111111111111111111111111 is -1? I don't need this conversion.

I solved it copying the old XP calculator to windows 7.

I hope helped.