where does the Windows Calculator store its settings?

Question

Each time I start the Windows Calculator it uses the standard view. It doesn't save the Scientific view, probably because my user account here at work doesn't have write permissions to some part of the registry.

Where exactly is this setting stored?

Answer 1

Aaron Margosis explains how to do this in his blog post Remembering Calculator and Character Map Settings.

To quote the relevant parts

Run regedit.exe as an administrator

Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\win.ini

To “fix” Calculator, create a new String value called SciCalc. Set the data for this string value to USR:Software\Microsoft\SciCalc

To “fix” Character Map, create a new String value called MSUCE. Set the data for this string value to: USR:Software\Microsoft\CharMap

Reboot the computer. (Rebooting is required only if you have used Calculator or CharMap since the previous reboot.)

This will cause the applications’ settings to be written to the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\SciCalc and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\CharMap, respectively. The application settings are now per-user, and admin is no longer required to save settings!

Answer 2

Edit C:\WINDOWS\win.ini and add

[SciCalc]  
layout=0