Social Security Benefit Calculator Download

The calculator (see description) can be obtained from this website. The sections below describe how to do this for the Windows and Mac OS versions.

If you have trouble using one of the links below to download the files to a Windows machine, try right-clicking the link and selecting the "Save target as" or similar option on the pop-up menu.

The downloadable files are stored in an InstallShield file. InstallShield uses the Windows Installer service, which comes with Windows ME, 2000, XP, Server 2003, and Vista. You can simply download our InstallShield installation file by clicking on Calculator.msi (1,229,312 bytes).

The Windows Installer service did not come with Windows 98 or Windows NT, but it can be installed on those systems. The Windows Installer may have been installed as part of some prior installation (not necessarily the Social Security Benefit Calculator). To see if you have Windows Installer on your machine, look for the file msiexec.exe . If you have Windows 98, it would be in the system subfolder under the Windows folder. If you have Windows NT, it would be in the system32 subfolder under the WINNT folder. If you find a file named msiexec.exe, it should be dated "06/29/00" or later; earlier versions will not work with these setup files. If you have it, then you can simply download our InstallShield installation file by clicking on Calculator.msi (1,229,312 bytes).

If you do not have msiexec.exe, the procedure to follow varies, depending on whether you have Windows 98 or Windows NT. For Windows 98, we have packaged the Windows Installer with the calculator setup program. When you run the setup program, it will install Windows Installer and then launch the setup package. For Windows NT, we have packaged the Windows Installer without the calculator setup program, because only someone with Administrator privileges can install the Windows Installer. So you should download and install the Windows Installer as an Administrator, then download and install Calculator.msi as a normal user (or as Administrator, if you like).

Finally, if you do not have the Windows Installer and do not want it, we provide an alternative version of the calculator setup package as a simple Winzip self-extracting file. It contains the same files as Calculator.msi, and installs them in the same place, but the Winzip version of the calculator setup package does not create desktop and start menu shortcuts, and does not allow for uninstallation from the Control Panel.

The 2008.2 version of the calculator and data, updated through 2007, can be downloaded by choosing the appropriate setup file in the following table.

After downloading the calculator, install it by executing the downloaded file. The InstallShield dialog boxes will guide you through the installation process. When it is finished, you will have a folder named Calculator with 33 files: anypia32.exe, anypia32.chm, 30 sample files, and a readme file (readme.txt). The default location for the folder is in a folder named SSA, inside your Program Files folder. There will also be an entry in your Start Menu and an alias on your desktop for the benefit calculator. To start the calculator, choose it from the Start Menu, or click the alias on the desktop.

To uninstall the calculator, choose Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs from the Start menu. Highlight Social Security Benefit Calculator and click Remove.

The downloadable files are stored in sit archive format. The 2008.2 version of the calculator and data, updated through 2007, are in Anypia.sit. Click on Anypia.sit (1,058,499 bytes) to download the Mac OS version.

Install the calculator by expanding Anypia.sit. This creates a folder named Benefit Calculator. It contains 32 files: Anypia, 30 sample files, and a readme file (readme.txt). Start the calculator by double-clicking on Anypia.

The Benefit Calculator folder also contains two subfolders named html and images. The html subfolder contains about 400 help files in html format, divided among 12 subfolders. The images subfolder contains 17 .gif files used in the html files. Start your browsing of the help files with main_index.html in the html subfolder.

To uninstall the calculator, drag the Benefit Calculator folder to the trashcan.