Word new menu default template tab - organization assets library - registry key

Dorje-McKinnon 

I had a support case with Microsoft recently that directed me to your post as it was very similar behavior. They were not able to help me as the issue I have is "by design"?!

I am currently on the monthly channel, version 2104 and I have issues with the Office Templates being stored in SharePoint.

I did make an intune policy to hide the "Office-provided templates" (see attachment) and configured the "Add-SPOOrgAssetsLibrary -LibraryUrl https://[tenant].sharepoint.com/sites/assets/templates -OrgAssetType OfficeTemplateLibrary". This SPOOrgAssetsLibrary cmdlet works as expected (I placed the templates on the root of the Sharepoint document library, so I avoid having the user navigate through folders).

Here is the configuration used in Intune (probably there's a similar GPO for it?):

While that works, there seems to be a bug with Office client apps (all our 100 something machines have this behavior):

The issue is when that there are no "Office-provided" templates, I would expect to see the templates as soon as a user clicks on the "New" section (making the templates 1 click away), but It doesn't show any templates.

To see the templates, I need to tell the users that they need to:

1- Open word

2- Go to "New" (which shows nothing the first time)

3- Click on "Home" (or some other screen)

4- Go to "New" again.

The second time they see the "New" screen, the templates magically pop-up as intended (see screenshot).

While the templates work as expected and are hosted in SharePoint, having to tell users that "you need to click on new 2 times" is not so nice.

Hope this helps you (and maybe someone knows how to fix my issue as well).