If you haven’t yet taken the plunge to upgrade to Windows 11, this new Easter egg might just be enough incentive to make the switch. Currently, users are updating Windows 10 faster than they want, but it seems that Microsoft has finally found the secret sauce.
Computers are becoming more and more new things. Instead of being pure calculating machines, humans have turned them into intensely personal devices, designed to entertain as well as function.
People love to customize things like backgrounds, sliders, themes, screensavers, alert sounds, and almost anything they can get their hands on to make any device look a little more fun to use. And Windows 11 just added one of the most pointless and satisfying examples of such customization in a while.
Spotted by users on Reddit (via The Verge), clicking the settings cog in some Windows 11 apps like Notepad will spin it. This animation is just a brief click-triggered rotation in a fairly quick fashion and does, as far as we can tell, absolutely nothing. But it’s very satisfying and strangely addictive. Especially in the new dark mode.
One Redditor had the perfect reaction in the comments, saying “That’s stupid. Keep spinning it.” which seems to sum up most people’s reaction to the delicious cog. Another suggests it’s probably part of Microsoft’s design principles for Motion in Windows 11. It’s a series of UI animations that help tie the OS together, and it looks like the one of the many little touches it will bring to Windows 11. It’s likely we’ll start to see a lot more things like this fun little cog, ready and waiting for a quick spin.
you_can_spin_the_gear_in_the_notepad_app from r/Windows11
If a spinning tuning gear isn’t enough to convince you to upgrade, Microsoft is hard at work on other features that might. Support for Android apps is coming, drag and drop to the taskbar has just been added, and the latest update is designed to prioritize the use of renewable energy. If all of this piques your interest, we can help you get started installing and optimizing Windows 11 for PC gaming.
