Hyperlink base: What does it do?

Excel 2007

I've been reading some posts on the hyperlink base feature, but I'm
not sure what it's supposed to do.

What I would THINK it should is that, when you press Ctrl-k in a cell,
the Address would automatically appear as your base and the Current
Folder would open to the base folder, so you could set you more-
specific hyperlinked location from there. But that's not what
happens.

Does the hyperlink base have any practical value when creating
hyperlinks using Ctrl-k?

Thanks.