Thank you for the reply.
I decided to bite the bullet yesterday, ran some cleaned up programs on my pc, updated what needed updating, and then created a System Restore Point.
Then I uninstalled Opera -- for some reason there were 4 versions(?!) of it on my computer. I got rid of them all.
I rebooted and then downloaded the latest version from the main Opera site and installed that. That worked! No more open and closing of blank screens.
Of course, Now I have had to go through and set up this new version with all my preferences and add-ons that I had in the old one. Problem is, I did that over years and trying to figure out all the changes and settings I had on the old version for the new one is gonna take a long time. And since the old version was so messed up I couldn't get it to stay Open, there was no way I could make notes of what I had for my settings. sigh
I really wish I knew what caused that freakish behavior with my previous installation.
It was just so damn odd.
Well, I have a working Opera browser again -- but, as I said, it's going to take some time before I have it set up the way I like it as with my old install.
This whole thing has been one big frustration and continues to be with redoing the settings on the new installation.
Again, thank you for your advice! If I run into a crazy problem with Opera again like I did this time, I will follow the steps you suggest!
**
