[WilliamWMeyer]

A quite arcane bit of arcana, but anyway, here goes:

Many Word versions ago I learned to suppress the default, blank, Document1
from being created when starting Word from Program Files in the Start menu.

This is done by putting /n after the file path of winword.exe in the Target
field of the Properties of the Start menu shortcut. (Sensible applications
put it in Tools | Options, but no matter.)

I'm pretty sure at least one version I used of Word enabled that "/n" thing
to work in just the way it's described in Word Help. However, it wasn't long
before the shortcut created by an "out of the box" installation of Word had
that Target field grayed out when you look at the shortcut's Properties.
Then, to use the "/n" suppression, one has to create a new, standard,
shortcut to Word, with an active Target field, etc.

Can anyone tell me why the modern default shortcut has the structure it
does? Does it have something to do with other Office applications? (Also,
Excel's method for suppressing a blank file is different from, though
similar to, Word's.)