Recovering from past install

[genegold]

genegold last edited by

The transition from Win 10 to 11 ended in a crashed PC, so after a direct install I’m trying to recreate as much as possible. I have all Opera files backed up on another drive. What’s the best way of doing it, with particular attention to bringing over the Speed Dial and Extensions (the most important of which is no longer available for download)?

Another thought: Were I to start Opera from the backup location, how could I connect it to the new main drive? Thanks,

[genegold]

genegold @genegold last edited by

@genegold This is Opera One, latest version.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

In "C:\Users\yourusrename\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable\Default", Speed Dials are in the "Bookmarks" file and their thumbnails are in the "BookmarksExtras" file. While Opera is closed, just replacing those files with the ones from your backup will get them back.

After starting Opera, you might have to goto the URL opera://bookmarks though and move things around if the old bookmarks and speed dials get treated as imported bookmarks because they were created by another Opera. But, that's not hard to do.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

You can't just loads extensions from another Opera's profile that was on another installation of Windows. If you try, Opera will just remove them as extension installations are protected.

However, you can do some manual work to get them back, but it won't restore their settings and data.

In "C:\Users\yourusername", create a folder named "Opera Extensions".

Then, in the "Extensions" folder in your Opera backup, copy (not move so you still have the backups) all the ID folders that are for the extensions you can no longer get to the "Opera Extensions" folder you created. You'll have to open manifest.json is each of those ID folders first to know what extension each folder is for. Skip the ID folders for Opera's built-in extensions and for extensions that you can just get from addons.opera.com or chromewebstore.gooogle.com again.

Once you have those folders in the "Opera Extensions" folder that you created, go into each folder and delete the "_metadata" folder if present.

Then, go into each folder and edit manifest.json with JSONedit in tree mode. You want to right-click on the "key" node and choose "delete selected node" and repeat for the "update_url" node. Then, save your changes. That way Opera never tries to update them and remove them if they've been pulled or blacklisted.

Then, in Opera, goto the URL opera://extensions, turn on developer mode, click "Load unpacked" and point it to the version folder in one of the ID folders (as in, the folder where manifest.json is at) in the "Opera Extensions" folder. That will load the extension. You can then repeat for the others.

Once you have the no-longer-available extensions loaded in Opera, you can install the rest from addons.opera.com and chromewebstore.google.com.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

For history, you can just replace the new "History" file with the one from your backup.

[genegold]

genegold @burnout426 last edited by genegold

@burnout426 Thanks! I'll get to a careful reading later. My Speed Dial is an accumulation over the years, so it'd be nice to keep it, rather than have to reconstruct from memory or piecemeal. But there's one extension, To-Read, a drop-down, I'd love to be able to salvage, even just in form, since it no longer is current. Afaict, no one has duplicated it or anything functionally that close. Like the stick shift and aftermarket stereo/CD changer that keeps me with my '99 Outback, To-Read was that one special thing which made me almost hold back from going to Win 11.