The problem started occurring with fresh install of Opera for "the current user only" and I have been seeing "scoped_dir*" folders being created for "*.exe" files downloaded via Opera.

I have found a solution for myself while reading a comment by Moderator, @leocg, who asked whether the problem persists regardless of "which directory (a person) save the file"; and I have went to the settings, then searched for "download", then clicked on "Change" button for an item titled "Location under "Downloads", then selected the Download folder from a popup window titled "Browse for folder" by navigating to the path that reads "(drive):\Users(username)" instead of navigating to the path that reads "(username)\Downloads".

I do not know how Windows or Opera is coded to cause such a problem, as I am an average user with a little more knowledge for computers than people around me, but ".exe" files I downloaded have gone to the Downloads folder without creating "scoped_dir" folders after taking actions in the previous paragraph. I hope this helps to fix problems for others.

56.0.3051.104 Stable
Windows 10 64bit

The current workaround is to make sure your downloads folder is on the same drive as your temp folder. For example, if your temp folder is at "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\temp", your downloads folder needs to be on C: also. Then, those scoped directores will be created in the temp folder instead.

Another workaround is to have the drive your downloads folder is on formatted as FAT32 instead of NTFS.

Another workaround might (depends on how the feature is coded) be to set your temp folder to be on the same drive as your downloads folder. For example, if your downloads folder is at F:\downloads, your temp folder needs to be set to f:\temp for example. However, before you can do that, you need to figure out how Opera determines the temp folder path. If it just uses the TEMP or TMP environment variables, you can modify those. However, if it uses USERNAME or USERPROFILE or APPDATA or LOCALAPPDATA or HOMEPATH as a base of the temp path, you would have to move your whole windows user profile to F:\Users\yourusername for example. That'd be a mess. If Opera uses HOMEDRIVE or SYSTEMROOT as a base, you're probably SOL.

However, if you can figure out why Opera is not cleaning up the scoped folders for you when it closes, maybe you'll have another workaround. Haven't checked in a while, but Opera cleans them up for me.

For example,:

On a side, I did notice that if you close Opera while a scoped directory it created is in use (because the installer is still open in the directory), Opera won't delete it, obviously. So, that's another situation to avoid.

V51.0.2830.26

FOR /D %%X IN (scoped_dir*) DO RD /S /Q "%%X"

This works better...

FOR /D %X IN (scoped_dir*) DO RD /S /Q "%X"

noscoped.bat

FOR /D %%X IN (scoped_dir*) DO RD /S /Q "%%X"

in the downloads folder and double-left-click it for easy cleanup.

Or, you could do something like:

cd "d:\downloads"
FOR /D %%X IN (scoped_dir*) DO RD /S /Q "%%X"

for the batch file and then modify Opera's shortcut to be something like:

 "d:\downloads\noscoped.bat" & "C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe"

That bat obviously wouldn't execute if you launched Opera via a file association (unless you edited the commands in the registry). But, it'd work for the normal shortcut case.

On a side, I did notice that if you close Opera while a scoped directory it created is in use (because the installer is still open in the directory), Opera won't delete it, obviously. So, that's another situation to avoid.

@burnout426 Fine, but then fix the Opera to clean up this stuff correctly. It's clearly broken if these folders are being left behind.

Can you list each situation where Opera doesn't clean them up? On shutdown of Opera, Opera is at least cleaning up ones it created in that session for me.

The exe that's placed in the scoped directory isn't a copy of the exe. It's an NTFS hard link to the original (which you can check with fsutil hardlink list filename), so it's not taking up extra space. By default, the scoped directory is placed in the system %TEMP% directory. However, if you set the download directory to another drive, the scoped directory must be created on that drive instead (in the downloads directory for example) because NTFS hard links can't cross file system boundaries.

These scoped directories are deleted when Opera properly shuts down.

So, Opera is doing this to protect the user from this type of attack, and all of Opera's current behavior with the scoped directories is correct / expected.

However, more-robust handling of cleanup of the directories might be investigated.

Hope that helps.

I'm having trouble producing the problem in both Opera and Chrome right now, but Chrome was doing this too when I initially tested this problem.

I was able to reproduce in Opera again (not Chrome though). I forgot the drive had to be NTFS for it to work (I assume it's required for the security measures for the directory).

@burnout426 No other browser does this and yet they all work just fine. How come, eh?

I'm having trouble producing the problem in both Opera and Chrome right now, but Chrome was doing this too when I initially tested this problem. If you look up scoped_dir issues, they're usually Chrome/Chromium issues (and Opera uses Chromium).

But, even if Chrome's not doing it, some Opera devs will have to answer the "How come?". I can just suggest that Opera is usually more conscious of privacy and security. Then again, it could just be a side effect of the way Opera implement the UI.

I'll keep trying to reproduce the issue again.