<![CDATA[Symbolic links and junctions]]>Some weeks ago I tried relocating my Opera installation to a different drive and accessing it through a junction or a symbolic link at the old location pointing to the new location. Everything worked perfectly until I did an update to a new version. This caused havoc. The junction or symbolic link was deleted (!) and replaced by a folder with the same name, but the new folder contained only the data portion of my installation while the program itself remained in the new location but - as the link was detroyed - could not be accessed anymore as before. I never encountered an aggressive behaviour of this kind. Other browsers like Vivaldi comply without problems with the relocation.

Any advice except "don't" ?

Thank you
Daniel

]]>https://forums.opera.com/topic/43560/symbolic-links-and-junctionsRSS for NodeFri, 17 Apr 2026 00:52:10 GMTThu, 17 Sep 2020 07:27:47 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Symbolic links and junctions on Fri, 18 Sep 2020 07:36:36 GMT]]>@orplidmeinland
Sorry. I'm correcting my typos.

My OS is Windows 7 Ultimate (up to date).

Your proposed layout correponds 99% to mine - with the exception that your "C:\Opera" and "D:\Opera" are "Drive:\Tool2\Opera" on my system, the permissions for the first drive are "Full access for Everybody" and I used mklink /J in the first place.

Regards
Damiel

]]>https://forums.opera.com/post/225108https://forums.opera.com/post/225108Fri, 18 Sep 2020 07:36:36 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Symbolic links and junctions on Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:31:06 GMT]]>Hi @burnout426

My OS is Windows 7 Ultimate (up to date).

Your proposed layout correponds 99% to mine - with the exception that your "C:\Opera" is that my locations are "Drive:\Tool2\Opera" and the permissions for the first drive are "Full access for Everybody" and I used mklink /J in the first place.

Regards
Damiel

]]>https://forums.opera.com/post/225099https://forums.opera.com/post/225099Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:31:06 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Symbolic links and junctions on Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:32:34 GMT]]>What OS?

Should the following be enough to reproduce?

Standalone installation (of 70.0.3728.178) at "C:\Opera" (with profile at "C:\Opera\profile\data") with shortcut on desktop that points to "C:\Opera\launcher.exe" to launch it.

Move "C:\Opera" to "D:\Opera".

mklink /d "C:\Opera" "D:\Opera"

Launch Opera with the shortcut, goto opera://about, check for updates and let it update.

]]>https://forums.opera.com/post/225079https://forums.opera.com/post/225079Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:32:34 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Symbolic links and junctions on Thu, 17 Sep 2020 17:03:34 GMT]]>@donq
It happened when updating from 70.0.3728.178 to 71.0.3770.148, i.e. the latest version. I linked the complete opera folder (standalone installation) "Newdrive...\Opera" to a junction/symbolic link "Olddrive...\Opera". After trying to update through the update ooption I got a folder "Olddrive...\Opera" in place of the link with a single subfolder "data". After restarting Opera from the update option the program didn't come back. Fortunately I had a backup of the original installation.

Regards
D

]]>https://forums.opera.com/post/225035https://forums.opera.com/post/225035Thu, 17 Sep 2020 17:03:34 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Symbolic links and junctions on Thu, 17 Sep 2020 16:36:08 GMT]]>@orplidmeinland
IMO this deserves bug report - no setup should override/delete junctions. BTW, which folder you linked - program files/opera or some underlying one (with version number)?

]]>https://forums.opera.com/post/225033https://forums.opera.com/post/225033Thu, 17 Sep 2020 16:36:08 GMT