You must have it set to show the wireframe view instead of smooth shaded. 

With an empty scene, in the Document Display window, click on the texture shaded ball (at the lower right).

Then, go to Preferences, make sure sure it is set to open to preferred state, and click the Set Preferred State button.

DOH!! Curse my metal body-I wasn't fast enough!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Wisdom of bagginsbill:

"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
“I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"
"The [R'osity Forum Search] 'Default' label should actually say 'Don't Find What I'm Looking For'".
bagginsbill's Free Stuff... https://web.archive.org/web/20201010171535/https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/Home