Spotlight calculator broken, because of 10.5.2

[justondean]

My Fix

So...I had this problem where my spotlight would no longer do math calculations. I would type in 2+2 and nothing...random stuff in documents, but no 4. I looked around and the best answer I found was reupdate with a combo updater. I downloaded MacOSXUpdCombo10.5.6.dmg from apple downloads and reupdated. Spotlight works fine now. 2+2=4.

 

[dbrouse]

Confirmed Fix

Using the MacOSXUpdCombo10.5.6.dmg updater worked for me as well. None of the other "tricks" worked until I installed it. Thanks justondean!!!

Delane Rouse

 

[dbrouse]

Again!

FYI...my ability to do calculations in spotlight broke again and I had to use the 10.5.6 combo updater to get it to work. No idea who/what/when/where or why...but I fixed it.

Guess I need to keep the combo updater on my hard drive so it's here when I need it again.

dbr

 

[Aniki]

soon you'll need 10.5.7 combo update lol

 

[welshtedz]

You sure your typing the question right?

Some people do 8x8 instead of 8*8
Make sure that you are doing it right instead of the other way.
I made this simple mistake a while back. Use the keys on the numpad side
James Jones.

 

[pvino]

I fixed this on my machine by moving calculator.app out of the applications directory and then copying it back in.

 

[odotan]

I had the same problem on a *fresh* 10.5.2 install (and update to 10.5.8) and simply opening the calculator app (which was under the applications folder) immediately made it work. Don't know whether it's a solution or just a coincidence... but for me it fixed it

 

[kyriakos1988]

found solution for all of us

well, it seems apple intentionally disabled spotlight to perform calculations for god knows why. but there is an easy way around that. you can enable it by either downloading MacPilot (shareware) but there is a 15day-trial, or buy downloading Secrets PrefPane (free) which will appear in the System Preferences.
Both of these programs are for "tuning" or "tweaking" your mac and are highly recommended!!

Here are the links:

MacPilot: http://www.koingosw.com/products/macpilot.php

Secrets: http://secrets.blacktree.com/

cheers!