Need advice on MS Word (if anyone can stand it)

[Eric Van Tassel 101233.342@xxxxxxxx]

My copy of MSW 6.0 has no documentation, and my knowledge of its workings
is wholly empirical. The soi-disant Help menus are usually spectacularly
unhelpful.

Two features have me flummoxed; both make my work in the program, when I'm
forced to resort to it, even more tedious than it otherwise would be.

(1) When I boot up the program, a "document1" appears on the screen by
default; if I want to get rid of it (as I always do), MSW insists on Saving
it first, so there's one more duff file on my hard drive to find and kill.
I want the boot-up default to be a blank screen with no file: how do I get
that?

(2) When I've finished working on a file and save it, it produces a *.BAK
duplicate. Fine; I do need it in case I've screwed something up (which I do
even more often than in XyW). But if I then switch to File Manager and try
to delete the *.BAK file, I'm told it's illegal to do so - presumably
because Mr Gates is a sentimental old cuss and doesn't want me to forsake
my roots?
   In fact, is there ANY straightforward way to erase/delete a file while
working within MSW? The only way I can find on any of Mr Gates's cute
little menus is to close MSW completely, go to File Manager (or to XyWrite,
indeed), delete the file(s), and reopen MSW -- which is daft.

At this point, I scream "Where's *.DFL?" If I go to Help and ask about
Defaults, I get told to go to Tools and then to Customize; but I don't
_have_ a Customize -- instead I have something called Customize Add Menu
Shortcut, which turns the cursor into a bold Plus sign and (so far as I can
see) does NOTHING else.

Needless to say, none of these problems *is* a problem in XyW.

Cheers
Eric Van Tassel