@Charles Kenyon - SOLVED? Really?? "Not so much solved as answered." And not answered to my satisfaction and I am the OP. "You can't" is no answer... it means the ONE PERSON who answered doesn't know how, or that no one here knows the answer, because there is certainly a way to make Word available via shell (as it is by default) but to have it call a different template *IF* modifying the default template is "impossible" as claimed.

This is the LEAST HELPFUL FORUM I have ever been on in my 21 years online when the mods swoop in and mark a question as solved/answered when it is neither and has ONE SINGLE REPLY that is decidedly UNHELPFUL that basically blamed ME for using the shell menu to start Word. What I see here is laziness and ignorance. "If we don't know the answer we just say 'you can't' and mark it solved."

Please do ban me. There is no reason to come back here with "help" like this. I should have expected as much from an MS forum! For MS fanboys MS is never wrong... it's always the user who needs to change their habits to accommodate the bugs and shortcomings in MS.

Maybe you can't but I can. Just not with any "help" from this forum!



Thanks for nothing guys, and have a great day.

So for anyone who wants to solve this problem, I found a way to do it.

Installed the free program Right Click Enhancer and used the "New Menu Editor." The window opens to show all enabled items in the New shell menu. Microsoft Office Word is enabled and listed as either .doc or .docx (or both). Clicked the red X to remove .doc.

Scrolled down to find .doc again in the disabled list. Highlighted it by single-clicking. Went up to top toolbar and clicked the chevron (drop-down arrow) next to the green check mark. Chose TEMPLATE. Browser window opens to navigate to the template you want associated with this shell menu shortcut. Note that the default file selection is .doc so templates won't appear in the nav window but go to the folder where you know the template is, and manually type in the template's name. In my case, "Normal.dotm" (no quotes), then click OPEN.

Right Click Enhancer will associate the template with .doc and this shortcut, and enable it in the New menu. Now right-click on any empty space -> New -> Microsoft Office Word ... and the doc will open using the Normal.dotm template (or your template of choice).

Where there's a will, there's a way. And...

...You're welcome.