First of all I would like to congratulate zgreenhostz for his equanimity in the face of circumlocutory responses from the helpers here and adding 'LOL' when he was obviously frustrated in having to ask his question many times over. Well done, zgh.
Although I have plenty of other things waiting for me to do, I felt I had to register and post a reply that was only (partly) solved by a moderator's single line post after 21 earlier replies.
Like Adobe, that wants to make almost everything a little different and unfathomable in a GUI environment that is meant to make operations obvious and intuitive [here I am reaching for my mousewheel so that I can see what I am typing], Opera seems to be following the same path: everything is just a little different in its own style irrespective of what users have learned from 45 years of Windows presence on the planet.
The OP was asking how to install Opera in the Customary Way in one of the Program Files folders that every other program uses. The few exceptions that there are prove the rule.
[more mousewheel[ I have spent a good hour (plus this effort) trying to find out how to install Opera64 (launcher.exe, it turns out) where I (and a billion other people) expect it should go.
This insistence on putting its executable in AppData in an effort to simplify installation (to the point of stupidity, imho) is perverse, imho.
Consider this, please: We Are Not All Administrators . For everyday activity I and millions of others work from a standard user sign-in. If anything prompts us for elevated permissions we are asked for an admin password. That's a precaution and a warning. If we want to install a program, we expect the admin password prompt.
All the programs in the world, except one, can accommodate this arrangement.
When I take the offered Opera download and run it, I see that it won't update my Program Files (x86) install from early last year but it puts it in my data folder branch, an executable, that demands no admin permissions.
Try though I might - even by gingerly hovering over a '64' link and downloading the 64-bit 'installer' - it Insists on installing under my username.
I ask the web and the forum how to install Opera normally as a program and I see talk of Options (never seen), offline installers and standalone installers - but no links.
I'm not unfamiliar with these things, but after about an hour and repeated attempts at installing, I happen to notice a tiny faint grey link saying 'Options'!`
There's too much to say about this saga - the absence of 'All Users' under that Options, getting the FTP link, finding the Windows 64 installable, finally running that as an admin from a user sign-in, not being offered 'All Users' during that install, not being given the choice of adding to my (user) menu, being given an Opera icon on the taskbar (unasked), having to create an Opera shortcut in all users' Start Menu Programs folders by renaming it from 'launcher.exe - Shortcut.lnk' to 'Opera.lnk', and finally testing it to see it it picked up my old data/setting and not the admin's from where it was installed.
How hard can it be to do things the normal way, Opera?
I have Nordic blood so I would like to support your efforts rather than those of the unpleasant tech majors - but you do make it very, very hard.
For anyone still after the answer, in part, take that ftp link (File Transfer Protocol) above, click away until you see the Windows 64 link, right-click it and save it, right-click the downloaded file (~60+MB) and 'Run as Administrator'. Look for the tiny 'Options' link and walk around the C: drive to the 'Program Files' folder - Don't Put It There - create an Opera new folder and put it there (the default link to AppData is too long to see that it requires an Opera folder you must choose - and it will install - not Opera.exe per se but an executable 'launcher.exe' that is, unintuitively, Opera.
You'll have to handle your user menu and desktop shortcuts yourself - I have to go and walk the dog, late, after this extended delay.
Good luck.
