Yup - that stuff is only applicable to an individual project, so it only appears when a project is open.
If you want to make changes in the Project section global (for new projects only, not ones already created), then open a new project with whatever template you want to make these changes for - like Normal - set the Preferences in the Project section for however you want them globally, and then save the changes either as a new template, or overwrite the existing template. This will cause any new projects that use the template to pick up the settings from however you changed them in that template.
Bob Bone