Opera Update Breaks Opera

I’m a long-time supporter of Opera but the latest update destroyed my browser. My background wouldn’t work. The interface was too large. Normally, I would adjust it through the DPI settings in the shortcut but even that wouldn’t work.

Is Your Opera Interface Too Big?

I lost my bookmarks. Resetting didn’t work.

How To Reset Opera

I went to system restore only to find that was disabled on my system for some reason. I always keep it enabled. I had to resort to mounting a Macrium Reflect backup image and copying the version of Opera from that backup to my system.

I first uninstalled Opera using Revo Uninstaller: How To Use Revo Uninstaller

Then I copied the Opera folder from my backup to the Programs Folder. I got a security warning that I accepted by clicking on Continue.

C:\Program Files\Opera

Then I copied the Opera Stable folder over to apps/roaming. I was expecting that warning box to pop up again but it didn’t.

C:\Users\Terry\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable

And that’s how I got it back. So, now I needed to disable the auto-update for a while. Opera doesn’t give you any control over the updates. But you can cripple it by deleting certain files.

Search for and delete the following files. I use the Everything search utility.

Everything Windows Search At Light Speed

These are the files recommended to disable Opera update:

• opera_autoupdate.exe
• browser_assistant.exe
• installation_status.json

Then, you need to open the Windows Task Scheduler program. Hit Windows key + R to open the run dialog, type taskschd.msc, and press enter. Click on Task Scheduler Library and search for Opera update entries. Look in the box with” Name” in the top left-hand corner.

I searched for any Opera update entries but there were none. Despite all of this Opera still gives me an update available notification but a restart of the browser makes it go away. I’m just going to ignore it anyway. I’m going to wait a couple of months, then I’ll download the full installer and try again to update Opera. This time, I’ll be making sure that system restore is up and running and backing up the latest Opera folders.

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