For anyone searching with the same issue-
I did a standalone install of version 95, and pointed it to a backup copy of my entire Opera user data folder.
Opera opened,. and ran, but the memory issue that existed when I first posted over two years ago has not been addressed at all
I will finally have to move to a better coded browser that still runs on Win 7. Too bad. I really liked a lot of the features of Opera
(I admittedly have a chit ton of tabs in my session (over 200), but obv not all opened at once.)
What happens:
Upon opening Opera v95, I go through activating some tabs. Once I get to about 10 or 12, I notice a instant 200 MB drop in disk space. As I continue through to about 15 tabs, I notice another 100MB gone.
This is obv the pagining file growig as Opera must be requesting this space.
I then merely open a private window, but don't enter any website (My Opera Start Page has all the bells/whistles off (shopping, etc etc), so just a blank plain start page)
Boom. 400MB of additional disk space gone, into the paging file (I assume, since my Opera data folder hasn't grown at all)
Two private tabs opened to plain-jane websites and another 400MB gone.
So it seems, once Opera (versions after 77) get to some threshold programmed in to Opera, it just goes ham on growing the paging file.
The only difference I can see from versions above 77 where this problem "exploded" to the last version for win 7, vers 95, is that when I close Opera v95, Most of the disk space taken by the program via the paging file, is actually released back to the OS.
The last version I'd tried before v95, was version 80, and none of that disk space was released after closing Opera, and I would have to reboot the machine to get it back.
Ridiculous.
So, all in all, a completely unusable browser under Win 7 (core i5 8GB RAM) beyond version 77
As an aside, I did a stand alone install of veriosn 75 which I'm using right now, and I have no less than 35 active tabs going and barely and disk space via the paging file has been chewed up..
this is the way Opera always ran until version 78
O well.