Opera Presto - what to back up?
-
A Former User last edited by
What to back up and how?
The question's arisen because of recent developments causing alarms of losing people's customised browsers. They say if you say yes to certain upgrade, you'll be left your Opera Presto as well? But what if I choose to reject, or like that? Or if something goes wrong? What happens then?I have my 11 set not to upgrade. Huh?
Should I worry?
In case I should - what do I back up and where is it found?
People were talking about "profiles", ini files, such stuff.
As to files, I can find them, etc. But what would I need to find exactly? What shall I probably change somehow?
And what to back up in case it's got necessary to recover things? -
blackbird71 last edited byFirst, you ought to be backing up your computer's key user-critical personal data regardless of Opera's updating policies, etc. Hard drive failures, computer theft, malware... all of it can destroy your online life and any personal data and settings you have. If you're running out of hard-drive space (which I believe you may be), obtain a large-enough USB thumb drive and place your backups on it - and then put that drive in a very secure place.
In general, back up any eMails, personal data (photos, notes, etc), and critical program settings/files. Ordinarily, most folks have physical media, or can re-download, the installation software for the OS and most of their application programs... even Presto Opera "old" versions can still be downloaded from Opera (at least presently). You need to survey the files you'll be backing up and get a flash-stick large enough to fit them on (and make it at least double the apparent "necessary" size - there will always be something you didn't think of at first, and with later backups, the files may have grown).
How you've installed Opera (either normal or "portable/USB") and the type of OS will determine where and which Opera files to backup. The simplest thing is to simply copy the entire subfolder containing your user-customized Opera files, though it does consume a bit more storage space. That way you get all of the tweaked files that will matter to you, since not everybody uses some of the Presto Opera features (Notes, RSS, custom toolbars, etc).
In XP, if it's a USB install, the key subfolder location will be in whatever parent folder you specified at install (I'll call it *parent):
c:*parent\profile
(NOTE: there should be a \ symbol after the "C:" term above - it won't display here for some reason, even after editing)
If you don't have space to copy that whole subfolder, at least copy the \mail, \styles, and \toolbar subfolders, as well as all the non-subfoldered individual files in the \profile folder - but especially: bookmarks.adr, browser.js, operaprefs.ini, override.ini, search.ini, speeddial.ini, wand.dat, and notes.ini if they're present.
If it's a 'normal' install for named users, the key subfolder location will be at:
c:\Documents and Settings(*account username)\Application data\Opera\Opera\profile
Copy the entire folder, or if lacking space copy the same kind of contents as noted for the USB install above.
Restoration simply involves re-installing the Opera version you had, making sure it works in its default mode, shutting off auto-updating in it, then turning it off and copying your backup files to over-write whatever the installation already put for the same-named files, and finally restarting Opera.
-
A Former User last edited by
...and then put that drive in a very secure place.
I must shove it up my arse, aren't I? :lol:
How you've installed Opera (either normal or "portable/USB") and the type of OS will determine where and which Opera files to backup.
That's what I meant :idea:
Copy the entire folder, or if lacking space copy the same kind of contents as noted for the USB install above.
I do believe the whole thing does not occupy anyhow significant space in terms of like my usual mediafiles
What if I temporarily just copy them files to a new folder in another partition for now? O'k?
...at least copy the \mail, \styles, and \toolbar subfolders, as well as all the non-subfoldered individual files in the \profile folder - but especially: bookmarks.adr, browser.js, operaprefs.ini, override.ini, search.ini, speeddial.ini, wand.dat, and notes.ini if they're present.
Will it be really all to back up?
I don't know what browser.js does and what override.ini for. I can guess about search.ini; I've definitely heavily used (customised?) all of the rest - except that "Wand" thing (if I never used something - there's no file?). -
-
A Former User last edited by
Backup Opera's profile folder...
Just the whole "profile" folder?
Enough? -
A Former User last edited by
Clear your disk cache (Preferences, History, Clear Disk Cache) before backing up the profile folder to make it much smaller.
I think that's enough.
-
-
-
blackbird71 last edited by
You can copy the backup files anywhere (outside of Opera's own folders) to retain the ability to restore them to Opera. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, I used to simply create a renamed copy of things like the bookmarks file (eg: I used bookmarks.bak, instead of bookmarks.adr) and left them right in the Opera folder itself. That at least gave me a restoration point if something went berserk within Opera itself and wiped out its own-named files with corrupted or default versions. In fact, I still have some of those in my older Opera installations. However, because of the effort involved in keeping them reasonably current and the risks of damage from other things (drive crashes, malware attacks, etc), I now auto-backup in several differently-timed ways to media independent of my main drive.
And yes, it really does back up Opera functionally for a user. Opera can be re-installed, and when it is, it will reuse any existing user-personal file it finds if it's reinstalled into the same folder name as originally used. Which is why a user needing a full Opera re-install in cases of corruption is advised to move his user-personal files elsewhere until the re-installed Opera is working, then copy them over one or a few at a time so as to isolate any that re-import their own corruption back into the new installation.
A point I raised earlier is that which of Presto Opera's functions a user employs can indeed affect what files he should backup. Some functions like Notes will only create a file when a user actually creates his first note, otherwise may not appear at all. So your mileage will vary, and it's always safest to copy the whole profile folder and its subfolders to the backup... that way, it's all there, whether you copy it all back to a re-install, or only copy selected parts as needed. I included the brower.js file since it contains Opera's tweaks to bring compliance with various websites, and if Presto Opera 'officially' goes belly-up, there's no assurance the latest update of that file will remain alive and retrievable on Opera's servers as it currently is. The search.ini file contains user-customizations of the Opera installation's search engine functionality. A key thing to remember is that none of these files are end-of-the-world in importance (apart from perhaps eMail, bookmarks, or a few others)... nearly all their functionality can be manually recovered eventually, though with the expenditure of a lot of effort.
-
A Former User last edited by
However, because of the effort involved in keeping them reasonably current and the risks of damage from other things, I now auto-backup in several differently-timed ways to media independent of my main drive.
That's logical!
A key thing to remember is that none of these files are end-of-the-world in importance (apart from perhaps eMail, bookmarks, or a few others)... nearly all their functionality can be manually recovered eventually, though with the expenditure of a lot of effort.
That major lot some time ago is so far in time now that I'd have to recall where the hell this damn' stuff is.:)
So, should I "clear cache" first or does it not really matter?
-
blackbird71 last edited by
I'd clear it, "just because". There isn't likely to be anything of value in it in terms of trying to recover Opera Presto using a backup set of files, and it certainly helps to reduce the backup storage space needed. The cache simply exists to speed up Opera's retrieval of website content, history, etc that it has already accessed before.
-
A Former User last edited by
Is it in a certain file or two which one can just leave "untreated" should some recovery needed?
-
blackbird71 last edited by
I'm moving out of my area of more-certain knowledge, but most (if not all) of the cache resides in the \cache subfolder under the profile folder. I'll leave it for others to say if there's any other fragments elsewhere. 'Sessions' is a possible similar situation, with files that can live in several places to auto-restore an interrupted Opera session to the page(s) it last was, and which some users rely upon to restart Opera to where it last was upon shut-down. If you clear the cache before backing up and if your Opera is set to start in some other way besides "resuming", then none of it should matter.
-
A Former User last edited by
"Too late!":D
I haven't found any "profile" folder [here]( "C:\Documents and Settings\Svyaznoy\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera") (tried three different ways etc.), so I've backed up the entire \Opera\Opera folder.
Right?The question now is how do I find the aforementioned files there in case something's happened!
-
blackbird71 last edited by
"Too late!":D
I haven't found any "profile" folder here (tried three different ways etc.), so I've backed up the entire \Opera\Opera folder.
Right?
The question now is how do I find the aforementioned files there in case something's happened!I apologize! In my path directions for the 'normal' Opera installation, the path should not have ended at a "profile" subfolder, but instead ended at the second "opera" folder:
c:\Documents and Settings(*account username)\Application data\Opera\Opera
I was looking on my little-used XP system at the one Opera version installation there that no longer is operative out of the 5 on the system, and the one which I had long ago moved everything into (and added) the final "profile" subfolder, just in case I ever wanted to restore it. Your actual 'profile' folder for backing up would be the 'second' "opera" subfolder noted in the path above, though if you changed the folder name at the time of installation, it might be some other term.
-
-
-
-
-
