Since this is a new topic, I moved it into its own thread to get the best answers.
I've been trying to do this, futilely, since Word 2019, at least. I had a macro that worked in Word 2013 but does not now. It may have been broken in Word 2016 but I do not remember when I noticed. Here is my Add-In, it still has the code in it for the Styles Pane width but I've disabled that.
Navigation Pane Settings at Word Startup